Introduction

Raditio, Klaus Heinrich

doi:10.1007/978-981-13-1283-0_1

Introduction

Klaus Heinrich Raditio²

Chapter
First Online: 26 August 2018

1547 Accesses

Abstract

After the 1995 Mischief Reef incident, the situation in the South China Sea (SCS) de-escalated. China and other claimants reached significant milestones, such as the 2002 Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the SCS and the accession to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. However, between 2007 and 2009, the tension re-escalated and it boiled over in the 2012 Scarborough Shoal incident. The author suggests that two security dilemmas apply in the SCS between China vis-à-vis other claimants and China vis-à-vis the US.

This book analyses (1) the development of the security dilemma in the SCS, (2) the significance of China’s actions in asserting its claim from the perspective of defensive realist theory, and (3) the rationale of China’s behaviour in the SCS.

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Notes

1.
Ralf Emmers, “The De-escalation of the Spratly Dispute in Sino-Southeast Asian Relations,” in Security and International Politics in the South China Sea: Towards a Cooperative Management Regime, ed. W. S. G. Bateman and Ralf Emmers (New York: Routledge, 2009).
2.
Erik Beukel, China and the South China Sea: Two Faces of Power in the Rising China’s Neighborhood Policy (DIIS Working Paper, 2010), 13.
3.
Ibid., 14.
4.
“NIDS China Security Report 2011” (Tokyo: The National Institute for Defense Studies, 2012).
5.
Bonnie S. Glaser, “Tensions Flare in the South China Sea,” Online paper. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 30 June 2011.
6.
Jian Zhang, “China’s Growing Assertiveness in the South China Sea: A Strategic Shift?,” in The South China Sea and Australia Regional Security Environment, 5 September 2013 (Canberra: National Security College, Australian National University, 2013), 19.
7.
Clive H. Schofield and Ian Storey, The South China Sea Dispute: Increasing Stakes and Rising Tensions (Jamestown Foundation, 2009), 24.
8.
Tessa Jamandre, “Brunei Snubs ASEAN Spratly Claimant’s Meeting to Forge One Stand on China,” VERA Files, 4 March 2014, http://verafiles.org/brunei-snubs-asean-spratlys-claimants-meeting-to-forge-one-stand-on-china/ (accessed 5 May 2014).
9.
US Department of State, “Remarks at Press Availability,” 23 July 2010, Hanoi, http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/07/145095.htm (accessed 8 July 2016).
10.
Jeffrey A. Bader, “The US and China’s Nine-Dash Line: Ending the Ambiguity,” The Brookings Institute, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/02/06-us-china-nine-dash-line-bader (accessed 11 November 2016).
11.
Timothy Glogan, “China’s’ Assertive’ South China Sea Policy and Rhetoric: Proactive, Reactive or Myth?,” (2011).
12.
Carlyle A. Thayer, “The United States, China and Southeast Asia,” Southeast Asian Affairs, 2011, no. 1 (2011): 16–25.
13.
Truong Thuy Tran, “Recent Development in the South China Sea: Implications for Regional Security and Cooperation,” in Maritime Security in the South China Sea (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2011).
14.
Peter Dutton, “Three Disputes and Three Objectives: China and the South China Sea,” Naval War College Review, 64, no. 4 (2011): 42.
15.
Glaser, “Tensions Flare in the South China Sea.”
16.
Schofield and Storey, The South China Sea Dispute: Increasing Stakes and Rising Tensions.
17.
Tridib Chakraborti, “China and Vietnam in the South China Sea Dispute: A Creeping ‘Conflict–Peace–Trepidation’ Syndrome,” China Report, 48, no. 3 (2012): 283–301.
18.
M. Taylor Fravel, “China’s Strategy in the South China Sea,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, 33, no. 3 (2011): 292; “Maritime Security in the South China Sea and the Competition over Maritime Rights,” in Cooperation from Strength: The United States, China and the South China Sea, ed. Patrick M. Cronin (Center for a New American Security, 2012).
19.
A. I. Johnston, “How New and Assertive is China’s New Assertiveness?,” International Security, 37, no. 4 (2013): 7–48.
20.
Michael Yahuda, “China’s New Assertiveness in the South China Sea,” Journal of Contemporary China, 22, no. 81 (2013): 446–59.
21.
Sarah Raine, “Beijing’s South China Sea Debate,” Survival, 53, no. 5 (2011): 69–88.
22.
Koon Heng Pek, “The “ASEAN Way” and Regional Security Cooperation in the South China Sea,” in EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2014/121 (European University Institute, 2014).
23.
Thomas J. Christensen, “Advantages of an Assertive China-Responding to Beijing’s Abrasive Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs, 90 (2011): 54.
24.
Zhang, “China’s Growing Assertiveness in the South China Sea: A Strategic Shift?”.
25.
Irene Chan and Mingjiang Li, “New Chinese Leadership, New Policy in the South China Sea Dispute?,” Journal of Chinese Political Science, (2015): 1–16.
26.
Edward Wong, “Chinese Military Seeks to Extend Its Naval Power,” New York Times, 23 (2010).
27.
Greg Sheridan, “China Actions Meant as Test, Hillary Clinton Says,” The Australian, 9 November 2010, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/china-actions-meant-as-test-hillary-clinton-says/story-fn59niix-1225949666285 (accessed 6 May 2015).
28.
Michael D. Swaine, “China’s Assertive Behavior—Part One: On ‘Core Interests’,” China Leadership Monitor, no. 34 (2011).
29.
Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Jiang Yu’s Regular Press Conference on 21 September 2010, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng//xwfw/s2510/2511/t756092.htm (accessed 15 August 2016).
30.
“China’s Assertive Behavior—Part One: On ‘Core Interests’”.
31.
Michael D. Swaine and M. Taylor Fravel, “China’s Assertive Behavior—Part Two: The Maritime Periphery,” Ibid., no. 35.
32.
Ibid.
33.
June Teufel Dreyer, “Sansha: New City in the South China Sea,” in China Brief XII:16 (The Jamestown Foundation, 2012).
34.
Zhang, “China’s Growing Assertiveness in the South China Sea: A Strategic Shift?,” 23.
35.
Michael Martina and Ben Blanchard, “China Says Vietnam Claim to Islands ‘Null and Void’,” Reuters, 21 June 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/21/us-china-vietnam-sea-idUSBRE85K0EM20120621 (accessed 5 May 2016).
36.
Fravel, “China’s Strategy in the South China Sea,” 292.
37.
Yuli Yang, “Pentagon Says Chinese Vessels Harassed US Ship,” CNN (9 March 2009), http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/09/us.navy.china/index.html?_s=PM:POLITICS.
38.
B. Jerden, “The Assertive China Narrative: Why It Is Wrong and How So Many Still Bought into It,” Chinese Journal of International Politics, 7, no. 1 (2014): 47–88.
39.
Bernard D. Cole, “Beijing’s Strategy of Sea Denial,” in China Brief, 6, no. 23 (The Jamestown, 2006).
40.
Ibid.
41.
For more comprehensive explanation with regard to this different interpretation, see Ronald O’Rourke, “Maritime Territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Disputes Involving China: Issues for Congress” (2012).
42.
Jerden, “The Assertive China Narrative: Why It Is Wrong and How So Many Still Bought into It,” 47–88.
43.
Swaine and Fravel, “China’s Assertive Behavior—Part Two: The Maritime Periphery.”
44.
Ibid.
45.
Ibid., 3.
46.
Ibid., 4.
47.
Jerden, “The Assertive China Narrative: Why It Is Wrong and How So Many Still Bought into It,” 47–88.
48.
Swaine and Fravel, “China’s Assertive Behavior—Part Two: The Maritime Periphery”; Timothy Glogan, “China’s ‘Assertive’ South China Sea Policy and Rhetoric: Proactive, Reactive Or Myth?,” (2011): 73.
49.
Yahuda, “China’s New Assertiveness in the South China Sea,” 446–59.
50.
Glogan, “China’s’ Assertive’ South China Sea Policy and Rhetoric: Proactive, Reactive or Myth?”.
51.
Ibid., 63.
52.
Ibid., 73.
53.
Johnston, “How New and Assertive Is China’s New Assertiveness?,” 7–48.
54.
Ibid., 38.
55.
Dutton, “Three Disputes and Three Objectives: China and the South China Sea,” 42.
56.
Ibid.
57.
Valencia, Mark J., Jon M. Van Dyke, and Noel A. Ludwig. Sharing the Resources of the South China Sea, Vol. 31 (Cambridge, MA: M. Nijhoff Publishers, 1997), 87 quoted in Ibid., 56.
58.
Ibid.
59.
Ibid.
60.
Ibid., 57.
61.
Swaine and Fravel, “China’s Assertive Behavior—Part Two: The Maritime Periphery.”
62.
Ibid., 7.
63.
Ibid.
64.
Ibid.
65.
Ibid.
66.
Emmers, “The De-escalation of the Spratly Dispute in Sino-Southeast Asian Relations.”
67.
Ibid., 134–38.
68.
Sheldon W. Simon, “ASEAN Regional Forum,” in Asian Security Handbook: An Assessment of Political Security Issues in the Asia Pacific Region, ed. William M. Carpenter and David G. Wiencek (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 47 quoted in Ibid., 131.
69.
Ibid., 138.
70.
吴士存, “海域争端与海洋行政管理改革—南海问题面临的挑战与应对思考,” 行政管理改革 [Wu Shicun, “Maritime Dispute and the Reformation of Maritime Administrative Control: Some Thoughts to Cope with the South China Sea Issue,” Xingzheng Guanli Gaige], no. 7 (2012): 14–19.
71.
Ibid., 18.
72.
褚浩, “南海问题的新形势与新发展,” 国际资料信息 [Chu Hao, “The New Situation and Development of the South China Sea Issue,” Guoji Ziliao Xinxi], 6, no. 12 (2010).
73.
Ibid., 吴士存, “海域争端与海洋行政管理改革——南海问题面临的挑战与应对思考,” [Wu Shicun, “Maritime Dispute and the Reformation of Maritime Administrative Control: Some Thoughts to Cope with the South China Sea Issue,” Xingzheng Guanli Gaige], 14–19.

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University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Klaus Heinrich Raditio

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Raditio, K.H. (2019). Introduction. In: Understanding China’s Behaviour in the South China Sea. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1283-0_1

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1283-0_1
Published: 26 August 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-1282-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-1283-0
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