The Sino-U.S. spy-plane crisis is a reminder of the ever-present potential for confrontation in the South China Sea. The world has been lucky so far. Despite a stream of provocations by the various claimants to the area, there have been no recent clashes. But as the EP-3 incident makes painfully clear, there are countless opportunities for just such an incident either in the air or on the sea.

Efforts to prevent a crisis have bogged down; while technical and nongovernment specialists agree on a need for multilateral action, politics has proven a formidable obstacle. A change of emphasis -- from a strategic to an environmental focus -- might get cooperative efforts moving again. Ironically, the spy-plane incident, by reminding claimants of the stakes involved and the dangers of miscalculation, could prove helpful.

It doesn't take more than a glance at a map of the South China Sea to understand the grim possibilities. It's a semi-enclosed sea surrounded by nine states; 90 percent of it is rimmed by land. It stretches across 800,000 sq. km., with hundreds of features -- outcroppings of rock and coral, islets and islands -- that dot the surface and provide a lifetime of work for cartographers and legal specialists who have to sort out the competing claims to the area.