ABSTRACT
As discussed, the South China Sea had been turned a sea of confl ict, a place where colonial powers had wrestled to expand their infl uence and to obtain maritime interests. However, a dimension that had attracted less attention was fi shing. In company with the advance of fi shing technology and navigation capability, countries with great fi shing capacity frequently go around the oceans worldwide for better harvests. The rise of distant-water fi shing and presence of foreign vessels in littoral countries' offshore waters has led to the argument that fi shing has become a critical dimension of the exercise of sovereign rights of littoral countries. Put differently, fi shing has become “sovereignized”, providing evidentiary effects to the sovereignty claim of the country.
