China’s Truman-Style Resource Quest Tests UN Law and Neighbors

When President Harry Truman’s push for oil in 1945 prompted him to claim all resources on the U.S. continental shelf, he unleashed a global race for the seas that led the United Nations to create rules for asserting territory.

Seven decades later, China is making a broader claim in its drive for resources in the South China Sea, a move that would reinterpret the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Last month the Philippines sought UN arbitration over China’s nine-dash map that asserts sovereignty of waters almost 800 miles away.