China expands by 3.5 million square kilometers.south of china.

[average american]

By international law (a 1994 treaty), the waters 360 kilometers from land are considered the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), of the nation controlling the nearest land. The EEZ owner can control who fishes there, and extracts natural resources (mostly oil and gas) from the ocean floor. But the EEZ owner cannot prohibit free passage, or the laying of pipelines and communications cables. China has angered its neighbors by claiming all the islands (especially tiny uninhabited ones) in the South China Sea. This is a 3.5 million square kilometer (1.4 million square mile) area south of China and Taiwan, west of the Philippines and north of Indonesia. China claims the entire area, as if it were one big EEZ. This has aroused the ire of the neighbors, and caused them to unite against China. That includes land that is a 1000 kilometers from China but only a hundred kiliometers from countries like the Philippines. Any neighbor that protests the claim is being punished economically by China, at the present time the Philipphines are being prevented from selling bananas to China which in the past was their largest market. Recently China up set the Philip pines when Chinese broadcaster refered to the Phillippines as one of their islands in the China sea.

Heres how the Chinese see it....Eastday-Sea renaming is politically short-sighted

 

[Ray]

The Chinese can take a running jump!