Parting of the South China Sea by Mira Rapp-Hooper is an article about China wanting to retain control over the majority of the South China Sea and the Philippines challenging their claim to the waterway. This issue is being watched by many countries including the United States of America as the South China Sea is an important waterway that is used by many nations for shipping and for natural resources. China believes that it has the say so and control over most of the South China Sea and sovereignty over territory in the South China Sea. China also states that a deal was struck with the Philippines through negations that settled this issue, and in doing so, the Philippines should not have had the right to file the case with the tribunal. …show more content…
They openly continue to fish and use areas of the South China Sea that legally belongs to the Philippines part of the South China Sea. The Chinese are even going to the extent of confrontationally approaching Philippine boats to prevent them from fishing and obtaining other natural resources within areas that should, by law, rightfully be the Philippines. China refuses to give up its hold in the Spratly Islands even though they themselves made the structures. They are not naturally occurring land masses. China has been diligently adding area mass to the Spratly Islands in hopes that the tribunal will recognize them as islands one day. The fact is even if the tribunal recognized the Spratly Islands as actual islands, they would belong to the Philippines because they are only located one hundred and forty miles from the Philippines shoreline. They also can’t decide who the specs of land belong to because law of the sea only applies to maritime matters and not land matters. The Philippines feel that China is in violation by dredging sand to build the artificial islands because the sand that they are using is legally within the Philippines territory. China has a lot to lose if the rulings of the tribunal are upheld. It has spent mass amounts of money in an attempt to make the reefs and rocks into islands. They have even put runways for military use and made naval harbors in this area. China feels that control of the South China Sea is vital to them being able to defend itself and they also depend on the shipping routes through the sea, and they want to be able to claim oil and other natural