evidence: Historically, the South China Sea has been a multi-faceted resource since ancient times. However, the tranquility that the area enjoyed for most of its existence was disturbed in the late twentieth century when a physical occupation of the Spratly Islands (situated around Nansha) took place. Colonization of this zone continued throughout the rest of the century until nearly all of the Spratlys were under littoral control by some surrounding nation-state (Gao & Jia, n.d.). Moving forward, after the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982 established that the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of a state would extend 200 nautical miles from the continental shelf of the coast of that state, many of the nations surrounding this area laid claim to the same spans of ocean (Image 1). In the case of the Spratly Islands, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Brunei have all claimed island territories and EEZ portions. Image 2 depicts the complicated political situation that is found in the South China Sea and how it has been attempted to divide this region.