China/South China Sea: China Using Ecological Protection to Boost Claims in Disputed Waters

Oct 19, 2016 | Ralph Jennings, Voice of America
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China's public order to keep away from a rare, environmentally unique ocean sinkhole in the Paracel Islands signals a new effort to tighten its grip on a tract of water disputed with Vietnam and monitored by the United States. The Chinese city of Sansha ordered on its website this month that tourism, fishing and unauthorized research teams avoid the 301-meter-deep (987-foot) Dragon Hole on a Beijing-held islet in the widely contested South China Sea. China is expected to protect the ecologically rare blue hole, the deepest feature of its kind in the world, rather than develop it.