The South China Sea is China’s primary sea route to India and the Middle East, and from there to Europe.
Note that the U.S. has for many years boxed China in from going to the east, because of U.S. presence in Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. The South China sea is China’s main trade route.
China is looking back on the Japanese experience before WWII, where the U.S. restricted Japanese access to oil and other resources.
The Chinese don’t want the U.S. to have the ability to do something similar to them, which is why it is trying to control and claim sovereignty over portions of the South China Sea to be able to prevent the U.S. from cutting off its trade route. Of course, once that is secure that could lead to other things we wouldn’t want, such as increased pressure by China to take control of Taiwan.
I suspect that the South China Sea thing is intended to cut our access to Asia and the Indian Ocean region.
http://www.baldingsworld.com/
Great guy to read for info on China.
As I said above, China is very overextended right now.
His Twitter is more interestign if you’re not into high finance:
https://twitter.com/BaldingsWorld