Much as I disagree with China over the nine dash line claim to the South China Sea it is worth highlighting the USA's position in the Indian Ocean.
The Chagos Islanders were displaced in the 1970's by the UK so that the atoll chain could become a major US military base.
In 1965, three years before Mauritius was granted independence, the UK decided to separate the Chagos Islands, an archipelago, from the rest of its Indian Ocean colony. The Mauritian government claims this was in breach of UN resolution 1514, passed in 1960, which specifically banned the breakup of colonies before independence.
The dispute is ongoing.
This from the Guardian six months ago.
The UK has suffered a humiliating defeat at the United Nations general assembly in a vote over decolonisation and its residual hold over disputed territory in the Indian Ocean.
By a margin of 94 to 15 countries, delegates supported a Mauritian-backed resolution to seek an advisory opinion from the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague on the legal status of the Chagos Islands.
The Chinese see Taiwan as a US funded threat to their sovereignty.
Most of the Pacific is under US military control.
Just look at Guam.
It is in the Phillipines but a part of the USA and on the same latitude as the Paracels and Spratlys claimed by China.
I rest my case.