evidence: As part of the larger South China Sea dispute, the long-standing Spratly Islands dispute is an ongoing territorial dispute regarding ocean areas and the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands to the north – two island chains claimed in whole or in part by a number of countries. The Spratly Islands consist of hundreds of islands and reefs. The 750 spits of lands that make up the Spratly Islands are small and largely uninhabited. However it is their strategic location in the middle of several major trade routes, being the home to fishing grounds which supply people across the region, as well as the possibility of their containing natural resources which have made the islands an extremely valuable commodity. It is worth noting that there has been little detailed exploration of the area, so estimates are largely extrapolated from the mineral wealth of neighbouring areas. [...] With the Spratly Islands falling in close proximity to a vast number of important shipping paths and given that more than half of the world’s top ten shipping ports are also located in and around the South China Sea, any change in shipping patterns through such an area has the potential to impact trade worldwide.