Qualla: South China Sea

South China Sea: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Every nation that touches it calls it something different. To China, it is the South Sea -- Nan Hai -- a name recorded in chronicles dating to the Western Zhou dynasty, three thousand years ago. Vietnam calls it the East Sea, Bien Dong. The Philippines, since 2012, has officially designated its portion the West Philippine Sea. Indonesia renamed its northern exclusive economic zone the North Natuna Sea in 2017. Even the act of naming this body of water is a territorial claim. At 3.5 million square kilometers, the South China Sea stretches from the Strait of Malacca to the Taiwan Strait, bordered by seven countries that agree on almost nothing except that these waters matter enormously.

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Image: Public domain

South China Sea: Where Continents Drowned

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ziegler175, CC BY-SA 3.0. The South China Sea sits atop a drowned continental shelf. During the last ice age, sea levels dropped hundreds of meters, and Borneo was part of the Asian mainland. The basin itself began forming roughly 45 million years ago, when a landmass geologists call the "Dangerous Ground...

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Image: Ziegler175 | CC BY-SA 3.0

South China Sea: Crossroads of Empires

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Himawari imagery: CSU/CIRA & JMA/JAXA, Public domain. Long before the territorial disputes, there was trade. The South China Sea has connected northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, India, and the West for centuries. The seafloor is littered with the wrecks of trading vessels -- Swedish engineer Sten Sjostrand alone has excavated nine hist...

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Image: Himawari imagery: CSU/CIRA & JMA/JAXA | Public domain

South China Sea: Over Two Hundred Islands Nobody Owns

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brocken Inaglory, CC BY-SA 4.0. Scattered across the South China Sea are more than 250 small islands, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs, and sandbars. Most have no indigenous inhabitants. Many disappear beneath the waves at high tide. Some are permanently submerged. And yet they are among the most fiercely contested ...

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Image: Brocken Inaglory | CC BY-SA 4.0

South China Sea: The Nine-Dash Line and the World's Response

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ziegler175, CC BY-SA 3.0. Both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan claim nearly the entire South China Sea within the so-called nine-dash line, a boundary that overlaps with the exclusive economic zones of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. The stakes have drawn blood. In 197...

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Image: Ziegler175 | CC BY-SA 3.0