The South China Sea is a pathway of strategic importance to China, as it relies on this route for 70-80 percent of its trade and energy supplies.

It is also an important passage for the Chinese navy to sail to the wider sea. For any group of nations to attempt to position themselves strategically in this sea, thereby encircling China, is something that China will naturally seek to prevent.

The US says it is concerned about freedom of navigation in the sea, considering that $1.2 trillion (R18.9 trillion) worth of US trade passes through this important conduit annually.

But China is equally committed to this principle, and has never attempted to hinder trade navigation in any way.

In this case, China has international law on its side, as it has territorial sovereignty over the main four archipelagos in the South China Sea. Despite attempts by neighbouring countries to encroach onto the islands and take them over, China has proof of its sovereignty over them, going back centuries. The Nansha Islands were initially discovered by China under the Han Dynasty almost 2 000 years ago.

China was the first to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the islands during the Yuan Dynasty, and marked these islands on its maps under the Qing Dynasty. It was only in the 20th century that Western colonial powers coveted the Nansha islands.

From the mid-1950s, the Philippines and Vietnam started to encroach on the islands, more particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, with the discovery of oil and gas in the South China Sea. It was in the later 1990s that the claimants became increasingly aggressive, with the Philippines navy blowing up Chinese survey markers and monuments on some reefs and islands, as well as raiding Chinese fishing vessels. The Philippines even ran two of its warships aground at strategic locations in order to maintain a presence in the area.