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Understanding and Defeating China’s Maritime Insurgency in the South China Sea
China is treating ocean space in the South China Sea as if it were land territory.
How should the United States?
- Hunter Stires
- The National Interest
The rule of an international system that upholds the legal and philosophical principle of the “freedom of the seas” ranks among America’s most important if uncelebrated national interests.
The preservation of a free and open maritime order is imperative for a country whose ability to connect with over 80 percent of the world’s population depends on overseas transportation.
For nearly four centuries , the oceans have held the status in legal principle (later codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ) of a…