Abstract

The South China Sea is of great strategic and economic importance because it is geographically located at the meeting point of the most intensive maritime transport routes in the world, as more than half of world trade passes through it. The South China Sea is surrounded by nine main countries, namely China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and Brunei. These Asian countries have the sovereignty of several regions of the South China Sea, as China claimed sovereignty over large parts of this sea and has built artificial islands in it and is trying to militarize the region by deploying military bases in it, This led to the United States ’intervention for an alliance with other Asian countries bordering the South Sea, as the United States sent its warships and military aircraft to the nearby regions with the aim of keeping maritime and air navigation routes open to all international parties, and the Asian and Western parties fear that the region may gradually turn into It is a "real conflict" point, and the consequences of any clashes in that region may have dire consequences on the global scale.