The South China Sea is generally considered as one of the flashpoints for conflict in East Asia. With its vast expanse, the South China Sea's many small land features and indeterminate maritime regimes are the subject of conflicting claims among China and Taiwan and four member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. These multiple claims vary in nature and extent, making the situation most complex and extremely difficult, if not impossible, to adjudicate.

Yet, this maritime body is vital not only to the claimant states, not only to the littoral lands, but globally as well. Through the South China Sea pass ships carrying more than half of the world's trade. The presence in and passage through it of American and other naval vessels enable the United States and other powers to project their military weight in that part of the world. According to the Energy Information Administration of the United States Government, a 1993–94 estimate by the U.S. Geological Survey placed the total of discovered oil reserves and undiscovered oil resources in the offshore basin of the South China Sea at 28 billion barrels, while a Chinese estimate had it as high as 213 billion barrels. Another Chinese estimate calculated the natural gas reserves in the South China Sea region at two quadrillion cubic feet. These estimates are of considerable importance in an era of high energy prices.

It was in the light of the importance, volatility and complexity of the situation in the South China Sea that the ASEAN Studies Centre of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) chose that situation as the subject of its first online forum. The forum is led off by an article by Michael Richardson, former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune and now Visiting Senior Research Fellow at ISEAS. Valuably illustrated by maps, the Richardson article focuses on the South China Sea's potential as a source of energy, the rise of China's military power, and related issues.