Chinese Military Activity Escalates in the South China Sea
through the South China Sea can be dated back to the second century, during the Han Dynasty, when emperors sent out explorers and government officials to investigate other parts of Asia.
A fifth, and related, potential explanation also centers around the U.S.–Philippine alliance but for different reasons. Because Beijing views the alliance in threatening terms, some suggest that Beijing coerces Manila in the South China Sea to drive a wedge into the U.S.–Philippine relationship. Chinese pressure around Second Thomas Shoal, the goes, will expose and exacerbate cleavages between Washington and Manila, undermining the alliance. China scholar has recently put forward just such an argument, suggesting that Beijing targets Manila not simply because it is a more menacing rival but because it is a more enticing target. Vietnam’s lack of an alliance with the United States, on the other hand, means that coercing it carries less strategic upside.
This argument is intuitively appealing but there does not seem to be any evidence supporting it. Of course Beijing would be pleased to weaken the U.S.–Philippine alliance, but its conduct in the South China Sea is not designed to do so. Over the last 30 years, Beijing has watched as its assertiveness toward the Philippines has and strengthened — not weakened — the alliance. Even when it had opportunities to weaken the alliance, as it did under the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, its coercive conduct in the South China Sea that it would be unable to do so. If it were interested in using the disputes to undermine the alliance, it would have changed course.
Other Military Activity in the South China Sea
As noted below, the existence of the U.S.–Philippine alliance — and the lack of an American alliance with Vietnam — are key factors shaping China’s approach to each. This has nothing to do, however, with Beijing viewing Philippine behavior as especially threatening or with it pursing a wedging campaign. Rather, the existence of the U.S.–Philippine alliance has counter-intuitively circumscribed Manila’s capacity to impose strategic costs on Beijing. This is a limitation that Vietnam does not have.
To be sure, Chinese leaders perceive this alliance to be threatening. This cannot, however, explain China’s variable approach to Philippine and Vietnamese efforts to consolidate their South China Sea occupations. Most basically, it stretches credulity to suggest that the Philippine presence on a decaying ship is especially threatening. However, even accepting the premise that China’s conduct is driven by fear of the U.S.–Philippine alliance, Beijing would not focus its coercive efforts on the most vulnerable of Manila’s outposts. It would focus instead of one of Manila’s larger occupations, some of which have been in recent years and all of which would have greater military utility. Furthermore, to whatever degree Washington benefits from the South China Sea disputes, it seems clear that the Philippine presence on Second Thomas Shoal is on balance a liability — not an asset — for it. As Chinese analysts correctly note, the United States does not want to be dragged into an armed conflict in the South China Sea, and especially not one over a submerged reef that does not even have the legal status of a .
Since at least 2011, Chinese leaders have framed Beijing’s policy in the South China Sea as one aiming to “harmonize” a (or, in their view, a dialectic) between () and (). refers to Beijing’s interest in defending and advancing its offshore claims. refers its interests in maintaining stability and, more broadly, maintaining a favorable regional security environment conducive to its rise. A congenial regional security environment has preserving friendly ties with its Southeast Asian rivals and avoiding pushing them into what Beijing views as a hostile U.S.-led coalition bent on thwarting its rise.
By 1942, the Japanese had pushed out the Europeans and expanded their rule into mainland and maritime Southeast Asia, occupying many countries surrounding the South China Sea.
Oil and Gas in the South China Sea Region, and Table 2.
When Japan surrendered three years later, the then-Nationalist government of China (known as the Republic of China) seized the opportunity to stake its claim to the waters and published a national map of China in 1947, including an eleven-dash claim to the South China Sea.
Oil and Gas in the South China Sea – Comparison with Other Regions)
Tensions are rising between China and the Philippines in connection with a territorial dispute in the South China Sea. The dispute may create a sense of anxiety in Southeast Asia while pushing the Philippines to increase security cooperation with the United States, analysts say.
Three of the most relevant to the South China Sea are:
The capacity of a rival to impose strategic costs on Beijing is largely a function of the extent to which it is already imposing costs on it. The more costs that a rival imposes, the less capacity it has to impose additional costs in the future. There are a number of ways in which rivals can impose strategic costs. They can, for example, impose reputational costs, publicly casting Beijing as a threatening state and propagating an alarming narrative about it across the region. They can impose political or economic penalties on Beijing, damaging the bilateral relationship, and they can forcibly resist China’s advances, escalating the conflict and destabilizing the region. Lastly, and of particular importance for the Philippines and Vietnam, a rival can tighten strategic ties with a hostile great power — such as the United States in the post-Cold War era — imposing “balancing costs” on Beijing.
Recent Military Clashes in the South China Sea.
The U-shaped, tongue-like line on the Chinese national map reached deep into the South China Sea; a visual representation of China’s professed right to waters sometimes hundreds of kilometres from the Chinese coast.
South China Sea dispute – latest updates
A fourth explanation centers around China’s perception of threat associated with the U.S.–Philippine alliance. Since the late-1990s, Chinese leaders have believed that the United States is using its alliances as anchors of an coalition aiming to thwart Beijing’s rise. This view, of course, has in recent years. Chinese and state-controlled regularly suggest that Washington uses the Philippines’ and Japan’s offshore disputes with China to advance its hostile strategic intentions toward Beijing. From this perspective, Manila’s alliance with Washington may make its conduct in the South China Sea more threatening for Beijing than that of nonaligned Vietnam.