Trying to keep track of all the contested territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea can be difficult. There are hundreds of islands, reefs, rocks, and submerged shoals that are in dispute, and the relevant coastal states don’t always agree on which of those categories is applicable to each specific maritime feature. To make matters worse, most of those features also have at least three different common names in use, which reflects the myriad of competing territorial claims throughout the region.
So in order to have an easy reference source regarding the locations and identities of the disputes rocks, reefs, and islands, I’ve created a Google Earth collection with placemarkers for China’s disputed maritime claims.
Right now, this Google Earth file provides indicators for (1) the geographical coordinates declared by China as its baselines for measuring the breadth of its territorial sea, pursuant to Article 16 of UNCLOS, for (i) China’s mainland territories; (ii) the territorial sea and EEZ divisions agreed upon in the 2000 treaty between China and Vietnnam; (iii) China’s claimed territorial baselines in the Senkaku Islands; and (iv) China’s claimed territorial baselines in the Paracel Islands; (2) the submerged features, rocks, and islands of the Paracel Islands which form the basis of China’s claimed territorial sea baseline; (3) the submerged features and rocks in the Spratly Islands and in the Scarborough Shoal that are identified as areas of dispute in the Philippines’ Annex VII arbitration against China; and (4) China’s Nine-Dashed Line Map, outlining China’s nonspecific territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Using Google Earth to view the disputed territories is also helpful in that it provides access to a large collection of user-uploaded photos of the disputed maritime features — which is handy for getting a better idea of just how rock-like many of these “islands” are, or for what a “low-tide elevation” really looks like. It also allows you to play around with the various distances involved, which puts into perspective the tenuousness of some of the territorial sea and EEZ claims that are being asserted.
-Susan
