U.S. Naval War College U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons CMSI China Maritime Reports China Maritime Studies Institute 1-2021 China Maritime Report No. 12: Sansha City in China's South China Sea Strategy: Building a System of Administrative Control Zachary Haver Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports Recommended Citation Haver, Zachary, "China Maritime Report No. 12: Sansha City in China's South China Sea Strategy: Building a System of Administrative Control" (2021). CMSI China Maritime Reports. 12. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/12 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the China Maritime Studies Institute at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in CMSI China Maritime Reports by an authorized administrator of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. iftChina00 Maritimeffij$i)f Studies �fflInstitute Summary China established Sansha City in 2012 to administer the bulk of its territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea. Sansha is headquartered on Woody Island. The city’s jurisdiction includes the Paracel Islands, Zhongsha Islands, and Spratly Islands and most of the waters within China’s “nine- dash line.” Sansha is responsible for exercising administrative control, implementing military-civil fusion, and carrying out the day-to-day work of rights defense, stability maintenance, environmental protection, and resource development. Since 2012, each level of the Chinese party-state system has worked to develop Sansha, improving the city’s physical infrastructure and transportation, communications, corporate ecosystem, party-state institutions, and rights defense system.