Opinion | A simple solution to the complex South China Sea disputes

Relying on the principles of international law and presenting verifiable evidence to a neutral tribunal could cut through the thorny issues of competing claims

Rather than examine claims to entire archipelagos, a given body only needs to reach conclusions about physical acts of administration on each feature

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The Horsburgh lighthouse on Pedra Branca Island, around 46km off the eastern coast of Singapore, on November 10, 2011. The International Court of Justice’s approach to resolving Singapore and Malaysia’s claims over Pedra Branca could be used to resolve the competing claims in the South China Sea. Photo: EPA

Published: 9:15am, 20 Mar 2022

Everyone knows the South China Sea disputes are too complex to fix. Too many countries are involved, there is too much history to unravel and too few people understand the details.

This conventional wisdom is wrong, though. In the last few years, researchers have gathered enough information about the history of the South China Sea to resolve the competing territorial claims.

The biggest obstacle to resolving the disputes is that Vietnam, China and the Philippines claim whole groups of islands rather than specific features. Beijing asserts a claim to every feature within the “nine-dash line” drawn on Chinese maps of the South China Sea since 1948.

This means the Paracels in the north, the Spratlys in the south, Scarborough Shoal to the east and the Pratas in the northeast. Taipei claims each of the four island groups separately while Vietnam claims the Paracels and Spratlys. The Philippines claims Scarborough Shoal and the Kalayaan Island group, which is all the Spratlys except for Spratly Island itself.

As a result, these claimants are playing a zero-sum game. No compromise is possible: they either win sovereignty over every feature in the island group or nothing.

Thankfully, there is a solution. It is one that has already been successful in Southeast Asia: presenting verifiable evidence to a neutral tribunal. Indonesia and Malaysia resolved their dispute over the islands of Ligitan and Sipadan through the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2002.

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