Circle the area on this map
D. The Philippines on the eastern edge of the the South China Sea has clashed with China repeatedly over fishing, oil exploration and control of islands. Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia along the southern end of the sea and Taiwan on the northeastern corner have joined Vietnam and the Philippines in challenging China’s territorial claims to the sea.
C. China has not accepted the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, one of several international courts in The Hague on the seacoast of the Netherlands. Instead, China has tried to dominate the South China Sea by carrying out aggressive incursions and building military installations.
B. More than $3 trillion in trade is carried on ships traveling the 1.4 million-square-mile sea every year. And, huge oil and natural gas reserves are believed to lie beneath its seabed. Many observers worry that disputes in the South China Sea could trigger a major war.
C. It is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. A marginal sea is a division of an ocean often partially enclosed by islands or peninsulas. The world’s five oceans contain scores of areas called seas, while the oceans themselves are simply divisions of the World Ocean. That continuous ocean covers 70.8 percent of the Earth’s surface and surrounds all land areas.