What happened?

On July 24, 2012, China established a prefecture-level city called Sansha City (in Vietnamese: Thành phố Tam Sa) under Hainan Province, the most important strategic location for China to push territorial claims in the South China Sea [1].

Sansha City covers 800,000 square miles of China’s nine-dash line map of claimed territories in the South China Sea, and it is 1,700 times the size of New York City, even though it mostly covers seawater. [2] According to China analyst Zachary Haver in a US Naval War College report: “through Sansha’s system of normalized administrative control, China is gradually transforming contested areas of the South China Sea into de facto Chinese territory.” [3] In other words, through the establishment of Sansha City, China is signaling that it is here to stay.