The recent pivot in US foreign policy to the Asia-Pacific region acknowledges new geopolitical realities: the center of the global economy has shifted, and the region is struggling for balance amidst contending powers. The fact that Asia will dominate this century economically is clear-its economies are projected to expand to 37 percent of world GDP in 2014, and the region will top the West in all measures of economic power by 2030. Unfortunately, Asia lacks a comprehensive security arrangement, and nowhere is the need for cooperation and regional stability more pressing than in the South China Sea (SCS). Despite its modest size, the sea is "a mass of connective economic tissue where global sea routes coalesce" around the demographic hub of the twenty-first-century world economy. As Southeast Asian states interact with growing Chinese diplomatic, economic, and military power in the region, the SCS is likely to become a strategic bellwether for continued US leadership in the western Pacific along with unfettered global access to the sea.
This unique book focuses on six states - the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC), Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Indonesia - and examines the drivers of regional conflict and sources of instability and competition in detail. Both individual national strategies and the multilateral efforts of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are analyzed in the light of U.S. engagement. Ultimately, the essay advocates a fresh approach of sustainable engagement that would focus on facilitating resolution of sovereignty issues and promoting equitable resource distribution while building partner capacity to more effectively and efficiently secure the maritime commons. Only the U.S. has the diplomatic and economic power levers to compel lasting change and stability in the region.The recent pivot in American foreign policy to the Asia-Pacific basin acknowledges new geopolitical realities: the center of the global economy has shifted and the region is struggling for balance amidst contending powers. The fact that Asia will dominate this century economically is clear--its economies are projected to expand to 37% of world GDP in 2014, and the region will trade places to top the West in all measures of economic power within the span of a single generation, from 1990 to 2030. Unfortunately, Asia also lacks a comprehensive security arrangement, and nowhere is the need for cooperation and regional stability more pressing than in the South China Sea (SCS). Despite its modest size, the Sea is "a mass of connective economic tissue where global sea routes coalesce" around the demographic hub of the 21st-century world economy. As Southeast Asian states interact with growing Chinese diplomatic, economic, and military power in the region, the SCS is likely to become a strategic bellwether for continued U.S. leadership in the western Pacific along with unfettered global access to the Sea.A number of issues in the SCS--natural resource development, freedom of navigation, and sovereignty disputes--create a backdrop of strategic regional competition against which the coastal nations must balance a rising Chinese neighbor and a distant American hegemon. Current U.S. strategy for the region is largely rhetorical and unlikely to solve any of the aforementioned core issues. Other than promising future adjustments to force posture, American leaders have not outlined clear, common, regional objectives or shown any interest in trailblazing towards a long-term solution.This essay, on the other hand, argues that America should take a much more proactive role in pursuit of a peaceful and balanced end-state. A SCS strategy of sustainable engagement would focus on facilitating resolution of sovereignty issues and promoting equitable resource distribution. Such a strategy would seek to build partner capacity to more effectively and efficiently secure the maritime commons, while realistically engaging China as a regional power and hedging against its long-term intentions. The need to energize U.S. efforts in the SCS is acute--the geopolitical and economic stakes for 21st century America overwhelm the anemic engagement to date.
Great Powers, Grand Strategies offers the analysis of a dozen experts on the “big picture” approaches to the South China Sea dispute. By exploring the international dimensions of this regional hotspot, Gordon Chang, Bernard Cole, James Fanell, Bill Hayton, and others examine how the military, diplomatic, and economic strategies of the major global actors have both contributed to solutions and exacerbated the potential for conflict. As editor of this volume, Anders Corr seeks to juxtapose the grand strategies of the great powers to determine the likely outcomes of the South China Sea dispute, as well as evaluate the ways to possibly defuse tensions in the region.
The history of the South China Sea is a catalyst of international cooperation and conflict. Security in the Indo-Asia-Pacific is largely governed by command of these strategic waters. More than half of global shipping transits the South China Sea, which also holds significant reserves of oil, gas and minerals, as well as some of the largest fisheries in the world. Drawing on a team of field-leading researchers, Jenner and Thuy provide an empirical study of the global ocean's most contested sea space. The volume's four parts offer an insightful analysis of the significance of the South China Sea to the international order; sub-national agents of influence on relations between states; the disputes over sovereignty through the analytical prism of international law; and the conflictful region's prospects. The primary source-based conclusion elucidates the agency of history and strategy in the South China Sea.
Traditionally, the South China Sea (SCS) issue was not on the negotiation table between the United States and China. However, the tensions between the United States and China over the SCS have gradually simmered up to a strategic level. Why and how did the SCS become a flashpoint between the United States and China? Will the United States and China really go to war over the SCS? Why did China adopt an "assertive" policy towards the South China Sea in the 2000s? What will regional actors do in the face of this "new normal" of competition between China and the United States? Will multilateral institutions in the Asia Pacific alleviate the potential conflicts over the SCS disputes? How will US-Chinese competition in the SCS shape the dynamics of Asian security? This edited book addresses these questions systematically and theoretically, with contributions from leading scholars in the field of US-China relations and Asian security from the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. It elevates the analysis of the SCS disputes from maritime and legal issues to the strategic level between the United States and China.
This book explores the very latest developments in the South China Sea maritime dispute. It examines the South China Sea as an arena for geostrategic competition between China and the United States and why the dispute is so important for regional and global geopolitics. It outlines the most recent developments in the sea itself and assesses the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the current views of the contesting claimants. It considers the position of countries from outside the region, India as well as Japan; surveys military and naval developments; and examines confidence building, preventive diplomacy, and dispute resolution measures. The book concludes by highlighting the points of greatest risk and by discussing how the situation is likely to develop going forward.
Not only is the South China Sea of strategic importance; it is also rich in oil and other natural resources. As such, it is the subject of overlapping territorial disputes between several East and Southeast Asian countries as well as the scene of military tensions and potentially dangerous conflicts. But disputes over the South China Sea are much more complex than simply issues of military security. Environmental values, economic security and political developments are also involved. Spanning the full complexity of the situation, this volume: * covers its historical and legal background * analyses its environmental, economic, military and political dimensions * assesses the potential for containing and resolving disputes as well as transforming the structures of conflict in the region.
The South China Sea is arguably one of the world’s most dangerous regions, with conflicting diplomatic, legal, and security claims by major and mid-level powers. To assess these disputes, CSIS brought together an international group of experts—from Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam. This volume gathers these experts’ analyses to provide a diverse and wide-ranging set of perspectives on the region and to explore possibilities for future cooperation.
The Paracel Islands and South China Sea disputes require better understanding by U.S. policymakers in order to address the regions challenges. To attain that needed understanding, legal aspects of customary and modern laws are explored in this monograph to analyze the differences between competing maritime and territorial claims, and why and how China and Vietnam stake rival claims or maritime legal rights. Throughout, U.S. policies are examined through U.S. conflicted interests in the region. Recommendations for how the United States should engage these issues, a more appropriate task than trying to solve the disputes outright, are then offered.
Major law and policy issues in the South China Sea are discussed mainly from the perspectives of leading American and European scholars in the study of the complex South China Sea disputes. The issues include regional maritime cooperation and regime building, Southeast Asian countries’ responses to the Chinese assertiveness, China’s historic claims, maritime boundary delimitation and excessive maritime claims, military activities and the law of the sea, freedom of navigation and its impact on the problem, the dispute between Vietnam and China, confidence-building measures and U.S.-Taiwan-China relations in the South China Sea, and Taiwan’s role in the resolution to the South China Sea issues. Over the past three years, there have been several incidents in the South China Sea between the claimants, and also between the claimants and non-claimants over fisheries, collection of seismic data, exploration for oil and gas resources, and exercise of freedom of navigation. Third party concerns and involvement in the South China Sea disputes have been increasing as manifested in actions taken by the United States, India, and Japan. It is therefore important to examine South China Sea disputes from the legal and political perspective and from the view point of American and European experts who have been studying South China Sea issues for many years.
