Re: Not as far as they are concerned
"Now, the fact that nobody, but China has accepted said land reclamation ventures to be a part of a sovereign state is a different story."
Land reclamation ventures are explicitly _excluded_ from attempts to make territorial water claims and have been for a very long time.
In this case China's not just facing off against the USA, but everyone else in the area - who are all getting quite nervous about Trump's rather vocal statements tending towards isolationism.
It's worth noting that the last war the PLA got itself involved in resulted in them being given a sound kicking (by Vietnam) and being sent home with their tail between their collective legs, so whilst it might sound like this is China vs USA WW3, the reality would be much more nuanced and all the bordering countries are able to put up a hell of a fight if necessary, especially if they put aside their differences and unite against a common aggressor. Bear in mind that the chinese name for SE asia roughly translates as "pacified southern provinces" and I don't think Vietnam has gotten around to forgiving China about the plunder of its forests for Admiral Zhang's fleet, with other countries holding similar long-standing grudges.
In any case whilst this is chinese sabre rattling, the real issue isn't about the sea, it's about what's under it - oil - and lots of it. The best way to render that argument moot is to work harder on alternatives and I'm undecided if the chinese are doing this to prevent the stuff coming up (more carbon emissions) or to secure their oil future. The quandry faced by China is that a 10 foot rise in sea level means that they'll need to rehome ~400million people and that's one of the reasons they're frantically throwing so much R&D money at nuclear power research.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
