Given the beauty of this sunset over the region of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, who wouldn’t want to claim ownership of them. The problem is that ownership is claimed by Vietnam, The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and, despite it being over 500 miles away from its nearest other territory, China. On first glance, other than the beautiful views, there’s not much worth arguing over; it is just a bunch of sparsely populated reefs, atolls and islands. However, potential oil reserves of 10 times the proven reserves of the USA and natural gas reserves equivalent to the Gulf state of Qatar skew the arguement somewhat! In the past 40 years, some 130 soldiers have been killed in minor skirmishes in the region. The future looks dangerously uncertain.
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