I have actually.
There are different ways to interpret territorial waters/EEZs in the open ocean leading to some inconsistency in claims. The US does have vast territory in the Pacific but the US is not seeking to steal territory from any other sovereign state, unlike China, and the US’s claims extend from islands that are indisputably US territory, many of which have large populations, again, unlike China.
What China is doing is the equivalent of if the US announced that all of the Caribbean, including all of its islands and resources from Trinidad and Tobago to the Florida Keys were US possessions.
Though off topic, here is the article for general reference:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/new-america-map/ballard-text
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Note that the US claims extend from:
Hawaii: Pop 1.4 million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii
Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands: Populations of 160,000 and 54,000 respectively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Mariana_Islands
American Samoa: Population 55,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Samoa
The Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska: Population 1,500.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands
…and the United States Minor Outlying Islands: Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Islands, Palmyra Atoll, and Wake Island, some of which host small more or less permanent populations of research or military personnel, but none of which house true self sustaining populations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Minor_Outlying_Islands
Only this last grouping of islands are really open to any debate as they are not truly inhabited, but none of them are subject to any ongoing territorial disputes and all of them have been under US control for more than 100 years, so if uninhabited rocks and islets count, then these are fair game.
Also worth a look, largest claimants of ocean territory:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/new-america-map/underwater-holdings-map
#1 USA
#2 France
#3 Australia
#4 Russia
#5 UK
#6 New Zealand
And, as you read from the article, USA is still planning and actively working on increasing its EEZ and author is very proud and excited about this 🙂
It is not a fair to try paint China an expansionist or aggressive power when Japan has its own ADIZ as seen on the map which covers whole East China Sea. If you can define Japan is expansionist or aggressive, you can do so for China too. If you cannot see this, you are not objective in my opinion. Think it this way, Cuba, a country about the size of Japan, had an ADIZ as large as Japan what would USA do?
Also it is ironic that USA is fully supporting Japan now. The reason why these forces have been in that region at first place was WW2 and Japan’s attack to basically everyone else and determination of USA to suppress Japan’s military. History and politics are fun… 🙂
And when you look into those tiny rocks, It is acknowledged by USA during and after WW2, they are part of Taiwan. Japan supposed to return invaded (stolen was the actual word used) lands to China including Taiwan after the war. However CCP won the war in China and Taiwan become almost independent and these rocks somehow remained in limbo. It is quite clear to me that these island are part of Taiwan because before the invasion of Taiwan by Japan, they were not under Japan rule.
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