Geopolitics of the South China Sea in the Coming Decades

Geopolitics of the South China Sea in the Coming Decades PDF Author: Mohammad Aminul Karim
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781536140941
Category : Geopolitics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The South China Sea (SCS) is explicably one of the most dangerous flash points in the world today with the potential to conflagrate into conflicts/skirmishes at the slightest provocation or even by accident. The Sea is uniquely strategically, even located, as it links the Indian and Pacific Oceans through the constricted Malacca Strait. It falls along the most critical sea lanes in trade and commerce for both oceans. The Sea, therefore, is a delicate and volatile water space with overlapping and conflicting claims (under the UNCLOS and historical records) by the surrounding countries. The SCS is a bellwether for determining leadership between two major powers: The United States and China. The United States is still the predominant power, while China remains the front running challenger. Consequently, a transition is underway that is fraught with risks and uncertainty. The transition may not be as smooth as the one between the United States and the United Kingdom after the Second World War. China is rising massively, and thus gradually asserting its influence among the claimant countries of the SCS and elsewhere. That said, China wants to settle the scores with the smaller claimant countries on a one-on-one basis. So, ASEAN centrality is coming under strain, though there are moves to conclude a binding code of conduct. China is resolute to claim sovereignty almost over the entire SCS while the United States means to focus on the freedom of navigation. The United States is conducting freedom-of-navigation operations round the clock, shadowed by an increasingly strengthening PLA. Other powers such as Japan, India, and Australia with their alignments emerging are on the queue to join the fray along with the United States. However, challenging China individually is problematic. Geopolitics of the South China Sea in the Coming Decades captures all of these complexities through a comprehensive, eclectic and objective method. Another unique part of this book is that it makes futuristic projections for the next few decades in the Indo-Pacific Region.

Geopolitics of the South China Sea in the Coming Decades

Geopolitics of the South China Sea in the Coming Decades PDF Author: Mohammad Aminul Karim
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781536140941
Category : Geopolitics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The South China Sea (SCS) is explicably one of the most dangerous flash points in the world today with the potential to conflagrate into conflicts/skirmishes at the slightest provocation or even by accident. The Sea is uniquely strategically, even located, as it links the Indian and Pacific Oceans through the constricted Malacca Strait. It falls along the most critical sea lanes in trade and commerce for both oceans. The Sea, therefore, is a delicate and volatile water space with overlapping and conflicting claims (under the UNCLOS and historical records) by the surrounding countries. The SCS is a bellwether for determining leadership between two major powers: The United States and China. The United States is still the predominant power, while China remains the front running challenger. Consequently, a transition is underway that is fraught with risks and uncertainty. The transition may not be as smooth as the one between the United States and the United Kingdom after the Second World War. China is rising massively, and thus gradually asserting its influence among the claimant countries of the SCS and elsewhere. That said, China wants to settle the scores with the smaller claimant countries on a one-on-one basis. So, ASEAN centrality is coming under strain, though there are moves to conclude a binding code of conduct. China is resolute to claim sovereignty almost over the entire SCS while the United States means to focus on the freedom of navigation. The United States is conducting freedom-of-navigation operations round the clock, shadowed by an increasingly strengthening PLA. Other powers such as Japan, India, and Australia with their alignments emerging are on the queue to join the fray along with the United States. However, challenging China individually is problematic. Geopolitics of the South China Sea in the Coming Decades captures all of these complexities through a comprehensive, eclectic and objective method. Another unique part of this book is that it makes futuristic projections for the next few decades in the Indo-Pacific Region.

China's Policy towards the South China Sea

China's Policy towards the South China Sea PDF Author: Lingqun Li
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351657364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
This book provides an explanation of Chinese policy towards the South China Sea, and argues that this has been sculpted by the changing dynamics of the law of the sea in conjunction with regional geopolitical flux. The past few decades have witnessed a bifurcated trend in China’s management of territorial disputes. Over the years, while China gradually calmed and settled most land-border disputes with its neighbors, disputes on the ocean frontier continued to simmer in a seething cauldron. China's Policy towards the South China Sea attributes the distinctive path of China’s approach to maritime disputes to a unique factor – the law of the sea (LOS) as the "rules of the road" in the ocean. By deconstructing the concept of "sovereignty" and treating the LOS as an evolving regime, the book examines how the changing dynamics of the LOS regime have complicated and reshaped the nature and content of sovereign disputes in the ocean regime as well as the options of settlement. Applying the findings to the South China Sea case, the author traces the learning curve on which China has embarked to comprehend the complexity of the dispute accordingly and finds that it is the dynamic interaction of the law of the sea regime and the geopolitical conditions that has driven the evolution of China’s South China Sea policy. This book will be of great interest to students of Chinese and Asian politics, international law, international relations and security studies.

Arms Race

Arms Race PDF Author: Aldéric Au
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781980725411
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
As friction in the South China Sea threatens to spark war, this primer brings a timely analysis of the changing power balance.As China rises, it is not in its interests to trigger a war. However, with that rise comes expanding interests; strategic, military, economic, and political, which it must protect. China is acquiring the means to defend those interests.Already China possesses the ability to bring regional nations into its orbit through economic self-interest. It will not be long before its military resources match its economic heft. Regional governments recognize the futility of opposing China and understand the benefits of cooperation. The contest for control of the South China Sea is over and China has won. China, assisted by the fecklessness of successive US presidents, has demonstrated the hollowness of American security guarantees in the region.During the coming decades Beijing will continue to pursue policies that persuade neighbors, and the United States, to face reality and accept Chinese hegemony in Asia. Increasingly China will set the terms in which others operate in Asia.The United States will not yield its primacy in Asia willingly. China's wish to create strategic space acerbates long-dormant tensions. Survival is the primary goal of any state in an anarchic international system. War would sound the death knell for Asia's rise and inflict serious damage on human progress more generally. So high are the stakes that policy makers are seeking solutions. Without compromise, leaders will use coercion as an instrument of policy. An agreed way forward is in everyone's interest.

Arms Race: China and the Geopolitics of the South China Sea

Arms Race: China and the Geopolitics of the South China Sea PDF Author: Aldéric Au
Publisher: Hawksbill
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
As friction in the South China Sea threatens to spark war, this primer brings a timely analysis of the changing power balance. As China rises, it is not in its interests to trigger a war. However, with that rise comes expanding interests; strategic, military, economic, and political, which it must protect. China is acquiring the means to defend those interests. Already China possesses the ability to bring regional nations into its orbit through economic self-interest. It will not be long before its military resources match its economic heft. Regional governments recognize the futility of opposing China and understand the benefits of cooperation. The contest for control of the South China Sea is over and China has won. China, assisted by the fecklessness of successive US presidents, has demonstrated the hollowness of American security guarantees in the region. During the coming decades Beijing will continue to pursue policies that persuade neighbors, and the United States, to face reality and accept Chinese hegemony in Asia. Increasingly China will set the terms in which others operate in Asia. The United States will not yield its primacy in Asia willingly. China’s wish to create strategic space acerbates long-dormant tensions. Survival is the primary goal of any state in an anarchic international system. War would sound the death knell for Asia’s rise and inflict serious damage on human progress more generally. So high are the stakes that policy makers are seeking solutions. Without compromise, leaders will use coercion as an instrument of policy. An agreed way forward is in everyone’s interest.

The South China Sea: A Look into China’s Modern Times Maritime Silk Road and Its Geopolitical Implications

The South China Sea: A Look into China’s Modern Times Maritime Silk Road and Its Geopolitical Implications PDF Author: Fritz Dufour, Linguist, MBA, DESS
Publisher: Fritz Dufour
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 12

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Book Description
Westward expansion has always been more important to China than eastward expansion because except for the Korean peninsula and Japan, China is looking at the vast Pacific Ocean. The west has always been and continues to be China’s lifeline. China has come a long way. Civilizations rise and fall. They come and go. But the Chinese civilization is one of the oldest and most stable. The Chinese engaged in world trade way before America was even discovered. They did that thanks to the Silk Road, which was an ancient caravan route linking Xi'an in central China with the eastern Mediterranean. It was established during the period of Roman rule in Europe, and took its name from the silk which was brought to the west from China . Although trading with the West was quintessential, China has always sought to retain their own economic model. When the four leading powers of the West – England, France, Spain, and Portugal - decided to build their politico-economic empires on triangular trade or face failure, China was thriving, as it had been for millennia. But World War II dealt a serious blow to China’s economy as the United states emerged as the only superpower on both the political and economic levels and put shortly after a policy of containment towards China. That, along with past failures, exacerbated if not China’s resentment at least its mistrust towards the West and, especially towards the United States.

Asia's Cauldron

Asia's Cauldron PDF Author: Robert D. Kaplan
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812984803
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES From Robert D. Kaplan, named one of the world’s Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine, comes a penetrating look at the volatile region that will dominate the future of geopolitical conflict. Over the last decade, the center of world power has been quietly shifting from Europe to Asia. With oil reserves of several billion barrels, an estimated nine hundred trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and several centuries’ worth of competing territorial claims, the South China Sea in particular is a simmering pot of potential conflict. The underreported military buildup in the area where the Western Pacific meets the Indian Ocean means that it will likely be a hinge point for global war and peace for the foreseeable future. In Asia’s Cauldron, Robert D. Kaplan offers up a vivid snapshot of the nations surrounding the South China Sea, the conflicts brewing in the region at the dawn of the twenty-first century, and their implications for global peace and stability. One of the world’s most perceptive foreign policy experts, Kaplan interprets America’s interests in Asia in the context of an increasingly assertive China. He explains how the region’s unique geography fosters the growth of navies but also impedes aggression. And he draws a striking parallel between China’s quest for hegemony in the South China Sea and the United States’ imperial adventure in the Caribbean more than a century ago. To understand the future of conflict in East Asia, Kaplan argues, one must understand the goals and motivations of its leaders and its people. Part travelogue, part geopolitical primer, Asia’s Cauldron takes us on a journey through the region’s boom cities and ramshackle slums: from Vietnam, where the superfueled capitalism of the erstwhile colonial capital, Saigon, inspires the geostrategic pretensions of the official seat of government in Hanoi, to Malaysia, where a unique mix of authoritarian Islam and Western-style consumerism creates quite possibly the ultimate postmodern society; and from Singapore, whose “benevolent autocracy” helped foster an economic miracle, to the Philippines, where a different brand of authoritarianism under Ferdinand Marcos led not to economic growth but to decades of corruption and crime. At a time when every day’s news seems to contain some new story—large or small—that directly relates to conflicts over the South China Sea, Asia’s Cauldron is an indispensable guide to a corner of the globe that will affect all of our lives for years to come. Praise for Asia’s Cauldron “Asia’s Cauldron is a short book with a powerful thesis, and it stands out for its clarity and good sense. . . . If you are doing business in China, traveling in Southeast Asia or just obsessing about geopolitics, you will want to read it.”—The New York Times Book Review “Kaplan has established himself as one of our most consequential geopolitical thinkers. . . . [Asia’s Cauldron] is part treatise on geopolitics, part travel narrative. Indeed, he writes in the tradition of the great travel writers.”—The Weekly Standard “Kaplan’s fascinating book is a welcome challenge to the pessimists who see only trouble in China’s rise and the hawks who view it as malign.”—The Economist “Muscular, deeply knowledgeable . . . Kaplan is an ultra-realist [who] takes a non-moralistic stance on questions of power and diplomacy.”—Financial Times

Navigating Uncertainty In The South China Sea Disputes: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Navigating Uncertainty In The South China Sea Disputes: Interdisciplinary Perspectives PDF Author: Nalanda Roy
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1786349299
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
This collaborative and edited volume explores the geopolitical and geostrategic significance of the South China Sea disputes. Experts from interdisciplinary fields and knowledge analyze the South China Sea's historical and contemporary strategic significance alongside the dynamics of evolving political powers in Asia. Overall, Navigating Uncertainty in the South China Sea Disputes explains why this issue resonates on a global scale and where it will move from here.This book explores a complex conflict challenging democracy, patriotism, resources, power, and the nature of Asia's future identity. With the increasing demand for natural resources in the region, it is becoming difficult to maintain a balanced and humanistic approach on the global stage. Navigating Uncertainty in the South China Sea Disputes will answer two key questions: first, why the South China Sea is of vital importance to Asia-Pacific nations; second, cover the interests of external powers and explain what international laws apply to the South China Sea, detailing rules that all parties should follow. By focusing attention on these issues, we hope to encourage scholars to expand the range of texts and genres they are willing to explore in search of nuanced ideas and debates.

China's Policy Towards the South China Sea

China's Policy Towards the South China Sea PDF Author: Lingqun Li
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
This dissertation examines the evolution of Chinese policy towards the South China Sea dispute over the past six decades. The South China Sea dispute is one of the most dangerous and intractable territorial rows in Asia, involving China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. This dispute also entangles countries outside the region, such as the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, whose maritime interests are heavily invested in the Sea Lanes of Communication in the South China Sea. As the biggest claimant to the South China Sea, China's handling of the South China Sea dispute has significant bearing on the regional security of Asia. The evolving path of China's policy towards the South China Sea has been shaped by two sets of factors. The first is the legal, normative, and institutional dynamics of the maritime regime at both international and regional levels. The second concerns shifts in the geostrategic environment in the South China Sea region. These factors have operated in two general ways. First, developments in the international maritime regime have exerted an incremental and sustained influence in shaping China's conceptualization of the South China Sea dispute and promoted domestic institutionalization of modern maritime governance. Second, the normative and institutional dynamics of the maritime regime interact with concurrent geopolitical flux, offering a blend of incentives and pressure that shapes the calculus of the Chinese leadership. By and large, China's handling of the South China Sea issue is characterized by a pattern of legalization and self-adjustment that fits into the regional institutional engagement architecture and modern international maritime order.

Great Powers Grand Strategies

Great Powers Grand Strategies PDF Author: Anders Corr
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781682477632
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
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 South China Sea Maritime Dispute

The South China Sea Maritime Dispute PDF Author: Leszek Buszynski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781315858029
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
The South China Sea is a major strategic waterway for trade and oil shipments to Japan, Korea as well as southern China. It has been the focus of a maritime dispute which has continued now for over six decades, with competing claims from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei. Recently China has become more assertive in pressing its claims - harassing Vietnamese fishing vessels and seizing reefs in the Philippine claim zone. China has insisted that it has "indisputable sovereignty" over the area and has threatened to enforce its claim. All of this is unsettling and draws in the United States which is concerned about freedom of navigation in the area. The US has been supporting the Philippines and has been developing security ties with Vietnam as a check upon China. This book examines the conflict potential of the current dispute, it discusses how the main claimants and the United States view the issue, and assesses the prospects for a resolution of the problem.