Talk:South China Sea Islands

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Good article summarizing the legal/historical claims of countries over the Spratly Islands (and Paracel Islands), especially from the point of view of Vietnam and the Philippines: [1] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Seav (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Sinocentrism

This article is too Sinocentric. Several of these islands are disputed territories and have different names in other languages. This article treats the entire South China Sea as China's backyard. DHN 23:17, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Three articles to two

We've got three interlocking articles here: South China Sea, South China Sea Islands, and List of islands in the South China Sea. I'm inclined to make them into two, probably by merging the contents of South China Sea Islands into the other two, making sure not to remove any information. Two reasons:

• Right now, discussion of the contested status of the sea and its islands is split between South China Sea and South China Sea Islands - it would be much clearer if that was discussed in just one place. It's a complicated subject with many details, and will be much more useful for the reader if they don't have to go to two places. The issues of sovereignty over the islands and over the sea itself cannot be separated; claims to the seabed are mostly based on the 200 km EEZs around the little islands themselves. They should be discussed together.
• Use of the term "South China Sea Islands" is questionable. The groupings of islands that it includes - the Spratleys, Paracels, etc are not universally agreed to constitute a single archipelago; some neighboring countries, perhaps to favor their own territorial claims, don't see all of these little islands as a single archipelago. If the existence of one big archipelago is contested, the neutral thing for us to do is to mention the claim (needs a citation), but not use it unquestioned as the title of an article.

Will there be any objection if I make this change? CDC (talk) 21:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)