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- Who owns the South China Sea? Clearly of all the nations in the region, the US has superior jurisdiction in the South China Sea, with Australia a close second.
- Who owns the South China Sea? China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei lay claim to the islands and other resources of the South China Sea. Brunei, a really small, filthy rich with oil nation occupying a tiny bite of Borneo, is not shown.
- The Paracel Islands are wisps of atolls and pretentious lumps of sand right off the coasts of China and Vietnam. Some of them would fit in the average mall's parking lot, none of them would take up more room than a major American airport.
- By getting really creative it is possible to create swimming pool-like ports, mostly used by military vessels and so the owners hope, before long, oil tankers as well.
- With even more creativity it’s possible to make airports big enough for fully-loaded military transports on some of the islands. The effect is a little like a snake swallowing an alligator sideways, though.
- The Spratlys are much closer to the Philippines and Malaysia than China and Vietnam. To get to Australia by water requires threading a meandering path between many islands of the Indonesian archipelago.
- At almost 1/4 mile long, Namyit is one of the larger Spratly Islands. It even has a heliport! The people there better keep their inflatable lifeboats handy, though, because it wouldn’t take much of a typhoon to swamp the entire island.
- This huge member of the Union Reefs group is almost 800 feet long and 300 feet wide at low tide. If they're serious about pumping the neighborhood's oil into the atmosphere, they need to start building on stilts while it still stays dry at high tide.
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Who owns the South China Sea? Clearly of all the nations in the region, the US has superior jurisdiction in the South China Sea, with Australia a close second. Credit: Google Earth / NASA
