Abstract
The chapter outlines that China’s naval strategy in East Asia’s maritime areas has led to rising nationalisms in other countries neighboring the South and East China Sea, a development that amid overlapping territorial claims not only fuels the SCS conflict, but due to the region’s lack of historic reconciliation may help to escalate them into military encounters. Accordingly, Beijing and Washington—the region’s strongest powers—share a responsibility to manage the SCS disputes in a peaceful manner. The chapter argues that it is time to find a sustainable diplomatic solution before a trivial accident might trigger an escalation that cannot be contained. The author therefore proposes to begin regional discussions for creating a ‘Framework for Peace and Security in the Pacific’ that has to tackle important issues like trust and confidence building among neighboring countries, the establishment of new inclusive regional governance structures and the mitigation of historical grievances to meet the peace and governance challenges in Asia-Pacific. The chapter concludes that a sustainable long-term solution to SCS disputes can only be found if regional countries decide to work cooperatively in a peaceful manner, which not only would benefit all countries in an interconnected Asia-Pacific, but would also help to pivotally shape the order of the twenty-first century.
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- 1.
Rodrigues Dr. Jean-Paul, and Notteboom, Strategic Maritime Passages: The Strait of Malacca. https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch1en/appl1en/ch1a2en.html.
- 2.
Dosch (2011).
- 3.
Kreuzer (2014, p. 18).
- 4.
Dosch (2011).
- 5.
Kuhn (2013).
- 6.
Kuhn (2013).
- 7.
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- 9.
Kreuzer (2014, p. 18).
- 10.
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- 11.
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- 12.
Nguyen Anh Tuan, Boston Global Forum Conference series, Boston, September 17, September 30, December 12, 2014, Professor Joseph Nye, moderator.
- 13.
Kreuzer (2014, p. 15).
- 14.
Stephens (2014).
- 15.
Brown, (2015, p. A6).
- 16.
Kaplan (2014).
- 17.
Buzan (2004).
- 18.
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- 19.
Kevin Rudd, interview with the author, April 26, 2014.
- 20.
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, interview with the author, January 2014.
- 21.
Boston Global Forum, Cambridge, MA, December 12, 2014, http://www.bostonglobalforum.org/2014/12/bgf-announced-a-framework-for-peace-and-security-in-the-pacific-2015/.
- 22.
Hill, Christopher R., “China’s Fear Strategy, Project Syndicate”, February 21, 2014, http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/christopher-r--hill-explains-why-china-has-gone-from-soft-power-juggernaut-to-neighborhood-bully.
- 23.
See footnote 22.
- 24.
Lam, Viet (See footnote 7).
- 25.
Kreuzer (2014, p. 18).
- 26.
Talmon (2014, p. 64).
- 27.
“Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Danny Russel, testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on February 5, 2014, said, “Under international law, maritime claims in the South China Sea must be derived from land features. Any use of the ‘nine-dash line’ by China to claim maritime rights not based on claimed land features would be inconsistent with international law. The international community would welcome China to clarify or adjust its nine-dash line claim to bring it in accordance with the international law of the sea.” Bader (2014), http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/02/06-us-china-nine-dash-line-bader.
- 28.
Kaplan (2014).
- 29.
Frost (2009).
- 30.
Kevin Rudd, interview with the author, April 26, 2014.
- 31.
Hill, Christopher (See footnote 22).
- 32.
Timmermann, (2014, p. 10).
- 33.
Timmermann, (2014, p. 12).
- 34.
Timmermann, (2014, p. 35).
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Bindenagel, J.D. (2016). Pacific Community for Peace and Governance: Towards a Framework for Peace and Security in the Pacific. In: Fels, E., Vu, TM. (eds) Power Politics in Asia’s Contested Waters. Global Power Shift. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26152-2_24
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