China Invents the "Land of Nanhai Zhudao" in the South China Sea
China has increasingly used the term Nanhai Zhudao to describe four island groups it claims in the South China Sea — Pratas Island, the Paracels, Scarborough Shoal, and the Spratly Islands — presenting them as a single archipelago administered as Sansha City. The article states that the term is a recent invention, with the first known mention of Four Sha dated to 2017, and that the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling found Beijing's claims to historic rights within the Nine-Dash Line had no legal basis under UNCLOS. Recent weeks saw clashes between Chinese Coast Guard vessels and fishing boats supported by Filipino maritime agencies near Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines has been attempting to resupply the grounded ship BRP Sierra Madre.
Why it matters: The consolidation of four separate island groups into a single claimed archipelago bears on maritime security and on the legal basis of territorial and resource claims in the South China Sea.