The South China Sea is a region of growing international importance and growing conflict. It occupies an area of about 3.5 million sq km and it is bounded on the north by Southern China and Taiwan, on the east by the Philippines, on the south by Borneo and Malaysia, and on the west by Vietnam. It constitutes the only sea which China has direct access too after it lost direct access to the Pacific ocean and the Sea of Japan as a result of treaties with Russia. The South China sea is characterised by a large number of small islands, reefs and cays (the Paracel Islands offshore Vietnam and south of Hainan, and the Spratley islands in the middle of the SCS many of which are barely above the water lines. But, since 1948 China has claimed sovereignty of many of these islands and reefs through historic fishing claims and it has produced something called the 'Nine dash line' which (shaped rather like a cows tongue) extends south west from Taiwan to embrace almost all of the South China sea, even extending to James Shoal which is just 25 nautical miles north of Brunei. China has become increasingly assertive in its territorial claims and has engaged in extensive island construction by creating artificial islands on reefs some with harbours and airfields. It has also engaged in a number of aggressive maritime activities against Filippino and Vietnamese fishermen. In 2013 the Philippines took China to international arbitration under the UN law of the sea convention UNCLOS to challenge many of China's claims. The result in 2016 was supportive of the Philippines but China (who did not participate in the arbitration refused to accept it. Today, China is one of the two major naval powers and the dominant economic and political power in South East Asia and it views the South China Sea as its own backyard and the conflicts are likely to continue. https://pca-cpa.org/cn/cases/7/