On June 18, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel offered a press preview of the U.S.-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue (S&ED) now taking place in Washington, D.C. During the briefing Russel fielded a question about U.S. efforts to reduce tensions with China in the South China Sea. His response was surprising: “As important as [the] South China Sea is … it’s not fundamentally an issue between the U.S. and China.”

While Washington has long sought to avoid entanglement in the complex territorial disputes in the South China Sea, it has had plenty of “issues” with Chinese behavior there. Yet such concerns may pale in comparison to growing discord over a new Chinese initiative to build artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago. Although these “land reclamation” projects are now nearing an end, the episode has provoked new U.S. concerns about freedom navigation and risks drawing Washington more firmly into the South China Sea milieu than ever before.

China’s Vision

China’s land reclamation efforts on eight maritime features in the South China Sea cannot be explained by basic economic motives or the important but declining fishing stocks around the Spratly Islands. While there are not-insignificant reserves of natural resources in the South China Sea, the high cost of deep-water drilling and the abundance of political risk have rendered their extraction unprofitable for the time being. In any event, most of the natural resources lie outside the areas affected by China’s artificial island-building.

Read more: http://thediplomat.com/2015/06/lets-be-real-the-south-china-sea-is-a-us-china-issue/