The Paracel Islands, also known as Hoàng Sa in Vietnamese and Xisha in Chinese, are a group of islands, reefs, banks and other maritime features in the South China Sea. They belonged to Vietnam before 1974, but currently controlled and occupied by the People's Republic of China after a battle in 1974. Vietnam always claims Hoàng Sa as its inseparable territory supported by the UNCLOS 1982 and its historical evidence. They are also claimed by Taiwan.
The Spratly Islands are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. Composed of islands, islets and cays and more than 100 reefs, sometimes grouped in submerged old atolls, the archipelago lies off the coasts of the Philippines, Malaysia, and southern Vietnam. Named after the 19th-century British whaling captain Richard Spratly who sighted Spratly Island in 1843, the islands contain less than 2 km2 of naturally occurring land area spread over an area of more than 425,000 km2 (164,000 sq mi).
The South China Sea Islands consist of over 250 islands, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs, and sandbars in the South China Sea, none of which have indigenous people, few of which have any natural water supply, many of which are naturally under water at high tide, while others are permanently submerged.
The Senkaku Islands are a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. They are located east of Mainland China, northeast of Taiwan, west of Okinawa Island, and north of the southwestern end of the Ryukyu Islands. They are also known as the Diaoyu Islands or Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands in Mainland China, the Diaoyutai Islands in Taiwan, and the Pinnacle Islands.
The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone and potentially the continental shelf. In a narrower sense, the term is used as a synonym for the territorial sea.
Macclesfield Bank is an elongated sunken atoll of underwater reefs and shoals in the South China Sea. It lies east of the Paracel Islands, southwest of the Pratas Islands and north of the Spratly Islands. Its length exceeds 130 km (81 mi) southwest-northeast, with a maximal width of more than 70 km (43 mi). With an ocean area of 6,448 km2 (2,490 sq mi) within the outer rim of the reef, although completely submerged without any emergent cays or islets, it is one of the largest atolls of the world. The Macclesfield Bank is part of what China calls the Zhongsha Islands, which includes a number of geographically separate submarine features, and also refers to a county-level administrative division.
An exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is a sea zone prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over which a state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind. It stretches from the baseline out to 200 nautical miles (nmi) from its coast. In colloquial usage, the term may include the continental shelf. The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 nmi limit. The difference between the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone is that the first confers full sovereignty over the waters, whereas the second is merely a "sovereign right" which refers to the coastal state's rights below the surface of the sea. The surface waters, as can be seen in the map, are international waters.
Haijiao (海礁), also known as Tong Island (童岛), Taibujiao (泰簿礁) or Taijiao (泰礁), is located at 30°44'6"N, 123°9'24"E in the northeast corner of the Zhoushan Islands and belongs to Shengsi County of Zhoushan city. The name Haijiao literally means 'the ocean reef', and its generally accepted cartographic name of Taijiao literally means 'the extreme reef', a reference to its isolated position on the edge of China's maritime territory. It is a baseline point of China's territorial seas.
Dongnanjiao Island("东南礁") is located in the northeast corner of Zhoushanqundao ,76 km from Shengsi County, and is part of the Shengsi County of Zhoushan city. Dongnanjiao is the baseline point of the Chinese territorial sea.
For the "Tree Island" in Tuen Mun District, New Territories, Hong Kong, see Pak Chau.
The territorial waters of Indonesia are defined according to the principles set out in Article 46 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Their boundary consists of straight lines ("baselines") linking 195 coordinate points located at the outer edge of the archipelago ("basepoints").
The Spratly Islands dispute is an ongoing territorial dispute between China, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, concerning "ownership" of the Spratly Islands, a group of islands and associated "maritime features" located in the South China Sea. The dispute is characterised by diplomatic stalemate and the employment of military pressure techniques in the advancement of national territorial claims. All except Brunei occupy some of the maritime features.
The nine-dash line—at various times also referred to as the ten-dash line and the eleven-dash line—refers to the undefined, vaguely located, demarcation line used initially by the Republic of China (1912–1949) and subsequently the governments of the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China (PRC), for their claims of the major part of the South China Sea. The contested area in the South China Sea includes the Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands, and various other areas including the Pratas Islands, the Macclesfield Bank and the Scarborough Shoal. The claim encompasses the area of Chinese land reclamation known as the "Great Wall of Sand".
Philippines v. China, also known as the South China Sea Arbitration, was an arbitration case brought by the Republic of the Philippines against the People's Republic of China under Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) concerning certain issues in the South China Sea including the legality of China's Nine-dash line.
The Hai Yang Shi You 981 standoff, also known as the 2014 China-Vietnam oil rig crisis, refers to the tensions between China and Vietnam arising from the Chinese state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation moving its Hai Yang Shi You 981 oil platform to waters near the disputed Paracel Islands in South China Sea, and the resulting Vietnamese efforts to prevent the platform from establishing a fixed position. According to an announcement by the Hainan Maritime Safety Administration of China, the drilling work of the Hai Yang Shi You 981 would last from May 2 to August 15, 2014. On July 15, China announced that the platform had completed its work and withdrew it fully one month earlier than originally announced.
The baselines of the Philippines are the set of geodesic lines completely encircling the main Philippine archipelago from where the maritime entitlements of the country are measured from. It was first established in 1961 by an act of the Congress of the Philippines which was further amended in April 2009 to optimize and conform it to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the Philippines is a signatory to. A total of 101 basepoints providing for 100 baselines were identified under Republic Act 9522, which identified Amianan Island as the northernmost, Frances Reef as the southernmost, Pusan Point as its easternmost and the Balabac Great Reef as the westernmost points of the main Philippine archipelago.
The article covers events that are related to the South China Sea dispute.
During the Administration of President Barack Obama, there were six instances of the United States Navy performing a Freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea (SCS). During the same period the USN also performed multiple other FONOPs in other parts of the world. The SCS operations involved Arleigh-Burke Class Guided Missile Destroyers assigned to United States Seventh Fleet. The U.S. FONOP program began in 1979 and the Department of Defense (DoD) keeps public records of FONOPs since 1991 on its website. The Department of State (DoS) provided guidance to the DoD on conducting FONOPs, with a particular focus on the South China Sea and East China Sea, while pushing back on the People's Republic of China and their "excessive territorial claims", specifically with the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, and Senkaku Islands.
Vietnam claims an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 417,663 km2 (161,261 sq mi) with 200 nautical miles from its shores. Vietnam has the 33rd longest coastline of 3,260 km (2,030 mi). It includes much of the western area of the South China Sea and parts of the southern area bordering Malaysia and Brunei's EEZs. The total land area, including inland bodies of water, of Vietnam is 331,212 km2 (127,882 sq mi). It has dozens of islands. Phú Quốc is the largest island with 574 square kilometres (222 sq mi).
