Why in the hell should we stick our noses into the issue of the South China Sea? Don’t we have more than enough involvement in every corner of the planet? It seems like we go out of our way to piss off as many people as we can .... and for no good reason.
You ask why? Well to start the major Chinese submarine base on Hanian island opens into the South China sea. Next, the other countries that ring the South China Sea, like Vietnam, offer a counterweight to Chinese hegemony in a maritime region that sees 5 trillion dollars of trade pass yearly. Finally we do not want international waterways to become a Chinese lake. These are for starters.