The paper, besides the Introduction and Conclusions, contains four sections. Section 2 highlights the significance of the South China Sea. This is followed by a brief overview in Section 3 of the territorial disputes and their implications for the management of the SCS. Section 4 points out the shortcoming of the two existing approaches to the management of the SCS and Section 5 mentions some principles that inform an alternative approach to the SCS, that is ocean governance.

The significance of the South China Sea

The SCS – the second largest semi-enclosed sea in the world – is bordered by China (including Taiwan) and eight ASEAN countries, namely the Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. As part of the most direct route between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the SCS plays a crucial role in maritime trade of our globe, serving as the crucial conduit for more than a quarter of the world’s trade volume.[2] Thus, the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) through the SCS are of great importance to not only Southeast Asian coastal states but also states beyond the region. In fact, most of maritime traffic between East Asia and Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia passes through the SCS.[3] By the same token, the SCS is also significant in military terms, especially for naval powers who want to maintain or increase their global military posture and rely on the SCS transit corridors for rapid deployments between the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.[4]

In addition to the geo-strategic importance, the SCS is vital to the developing economies of countries in the region as it holds a large number of assets, notably living and non-living resources. With regard to the latter, there is also widespread perception that the seabed of the SCS holds significant amounts of oil and gas. This is testified by significant commercial discoveries made at the margins of the SCS.[5] Given their increasing energy demands and the surging oil prices, the oil factor arguably looms large in the geopolitical calculations of states in the region. Living resources in the SCS are abundant[6]and most of the fisheries resources in the SCS are either highly migratory or transboundary stocks,[7] such as scad, mackerel and especially tuna – the most valuable and sought-after species.[8] The abundance of marine living resources in SCS is thanks to its high biodiversity[9] with coral reefs being the important nursery and breeding grounds for regional fisheries.

The socio-economicimportance of fisheries to the East Asian countries cannot be overestimated. In fact, fish has been and continues providing an important source of protein for countries in the region.[10]The already high annual per capita fish consumption in China and Southeast Asia is estimated to increase from 33.6 million and 18 million tons in 2005 by 4.5-5.5 million and 3 million tones respectively after 10 years.[11]Fisheries have always been of great social importance to East Asian countries, creating jobs for a large portion of population living in the coastal sub-region. In fact, in 2010, the SCS countries accounted for more than 75% and approximately 49% of the total marine fish capture production of Asia and the world respectively.[12]Economically speaking, fishery exports are an important source of foreign currency for coastal states.[13]