US warship sails in disputed South China Sea amid trade tensions

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/us-warship-sails-in-disputed-south-china-sea-amid-trade-tensions

US warship sails in disputed South China Sea amid trade tensions

Destroyer moved near Scarborough Reef to ‘challenge excessive maritime claims’, says commander of Seventh Fleet

Reuters

Mon 20 May 2019 05.30 BST

A US warship has sailed near the disputed Scarborough Shoal claimed by China in the South China Sea, a move likely to anger Beijing at a time of tense ties between the world’s two biggest economies.

The destroyer USS Preble carried out the operation on Sunday, a US military spokesman said. The busy waterway is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which also include a trade war, the blacklisting of tech company Huawei US sanctions and Taiwan.

“Preble sailed within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Reef in order to challenge excessive maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways as governed by international law,” said Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the Seventh Fleet.
(snip)

[soryang]

1. When is someone going to present the legal arguments for the disputed issues?

The LOSC comprises a variety of areas concerning the seas in general which may present the problem of rendering it insufficient in the provision of certain aspects
concerning artificial islands. Moreover, over recent years, a number of significant
technological innovations have reached fruition, and the LOSC is generally regarded
as being inadequate in the light of these innovations which did not exist at the time of
formulation of this Convention...

...Traditionally, discussions on artificial islands only seemed relevant in relation to the
limitation of the extension of state sovereignty over the seas. While this issue has been
settled by the LOSC, the legal status of artificial islands has remained ambiguous. ...

...Since artificial islands have been expressly ruled out from
the definition of ‘natural islands’ in the LOSC, their status is one which is neither a
ship nor as an island in international law...

https://www.blue21.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Artificial-Islands-in-The-Law-of-the-Sea.pdf

Typically, the conflicting territorial and jurisdictional disputes, maritime claims, economic claims and freedom of navigation claims are hopelessly conflated. The law concerning artificial islands is unsettled to say the least. The notion that the law of the sea will be frozen forever in time at 1982 seems to be the position of the western alliance.

What about the naval shorthand OBE (overtaken by events)? Does the US feel that it is somehow going to force the Chinese off these artificial islands? Just what does "within 12 nautical miles" mean? Is there no limit at all? What about safety concerns? Do US maritime patrol aircraft fly directly over a Chinese airfield built on an artificial island? When is a common sense effort going to be made to defuse the potential for military conflict over this issue?

The idea that this is not a political issue is nonsense.