No one knows for sure how much oil and natural gas lie underneath the bottom of the South China Sea. One estimate puts natural gas reserves there at triple the entire domestic supply of the United States. And that's why China and Vietnam -- both rapidly developing and in need of more fossil fuels -- are fighting over ownership.
Carl Thayer, a professor at the University of New South Wales says Vietnam's banking its entire future on its own piece of the sea.
Its own economists had mapped out that if Vietnam implemented an economic plan that went out two decades, over half the GDP in Vietnam's trade would come from the maritime area.
The problem is, China's laying claim to the same maritime area. In the past year, China also scuffled with Japan over another island chain.
Edward Friedman, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin says all this posturing is Beijing's effort to show the United States it has a powerful navy, too. He says after the global financial crisis, China came to the conclusion the U.S. wasn't recovering quickly. China was. And that this was a unique moment, finally, for China, as the leadership in Beijing experienced it, to get justice.
But Peking University professor Zhu Feng says in this latest conflict, China is just responding to an aggressive push by both Vietnam and the Philippines to explore for oil.
Beijing hasn't just moved down to this disputed area for any oil exploration. So it appears it's Vietnam and Philippine who changed the status quo
