Regional Disorder: The South China Sea Disputes

by Sarah Raine

Overview

China‘s rise casts a vast and uncertain shadow over the regional balance of power in the Asia Pacific, and nowhere is this clearer than in the South China Sea. The significance of the fraught territorial disputes in this potentially resource-rich sea extends far beyond the small groupings of islands that are at their heart, and into the world of great-power politics. As the struggle for hegemony between the US and China intersects with the overlapping aspirations of emerging, smaller nations, the risk of escalation to regional conflict is real. Christian Le Mi and Sarah Raine cut through the complexities of these disputes with a clear-sighted, and much-needed, analysis of the assorted strategies deployed in support of the multiple and competing claims in the SCS. They make a compelling case that the course of these disputes will determine whether the regional order in Southeast Asia is one of cooperation, or one of competition and even conflict.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415702621
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/11/2013
Series:	Adelphi series
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Sarah Raine is Consulting Fellow for Chinese Foreign and Security Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. She has also worked at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and is the author of China's African Challenges (IISS: 2009).

Christian Le Mière is Senior Research Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He was previously the editor of Jane’s Intelligence Review.

Table of Contents

Maps 7

Introduction 11

Disputes and disagreements: from regional to global 13

Beijing sets the tone 17

Southeast Asian states matter too 19

The US as monitor and arbiter 21

Prospects and implications 22

The South China Sea and the regional disorder 25

Chapter 1 Mapping the history 29

The law and the sea 30

Clarifying the claims today 32

Understanding where these claims come from 35

Chapter 2 Beijing's multifaceted approaches 55

How 'assertive'? 56

Beijing's multi-layered approaches to the South China Sea 60

The domestic challenges of Beijing's South China Sea strategies 83

Chapter 3 Southeast Asia - between emerging great-power rivalry 105

Regional approaches 110

Leading the charge - Vietnam and the Philippines 113

The quieter claimants - Malaysia and Brunei 120

Anxious ASEAN - Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand 122

Disinterested ASEAN - Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos 126

The peculiar position of Taiwan 128

Working together within ASEAN? 129

Distrust in defence 132

Engaging other third-party interests 137

Southeast Asia's role in evolving great-power dynamics 143

Chapter 4 The US in the South China Sea 151

Obama's Asia pivot 153

Military modernisation and the evolution of US partnerships in the region 154

Building stronger political and economic partnerships 160

Constraining factors on US engagement 164

Considering China 168

Strategic balancing 172

Conclusions 179

Mapping the future of the South China Sea 180

Identifying way markers 193

Managing tensions in the South China Sea 202

The South China Sea and the regional order 212

Appendix: The legal environment in the South China Sea 215

The limits of the convention 217

The tensions of its interpretation 220

The US and UNCLOS 221

Conclusion 223