This book discusses the South China Sea dispute from a Chinese perspective with regards to history, law, international politics, the economy, diplomacy and military affairs. Not only does it detail China's official position on the sovereignty and maritime disputes in the South China Sea, but also provides analyses of the related factors influencing the origin and development of these disputes. It further assesses the complexity, internationalisation and long-term struggle over the South China Sea and China's efforts in dispute resolution.Solving Disputes for Regional Cooperation and Development aims to help readers better understand a Chinese perspective on the complexity of the South China Sea disputes, including competition over the sovereignty of the islets, islands regime and its impact on maritime delimitation, overlapping maritime claims, and how the adjacent states can cooperate for resource development in the South China Sea.This title is highly pertinent in the context of the growing attention paid to potential international conflicts in the South China Sea, and covers a wide range of topics including history, law, international politics, economy, diplomacy and military affairs. - Highly pertinent in the context of the growing attention paid to potential international conflicts in the South China Sea - Covers a wide range of topics including history, law, international politics, economy, diplomacy and military affairs - One of the very few books written by a Chinese scholar in English in this area

The history of the South China Sea is a catalyst of international cooperation and conflict. Security in the Indo-Asia-Pacific is largely governed by command of these strategic waters. More than half of global shipping transits the South China Sea, which also holds significant reserves of oil, gas and minerals, as well as some of the largest fisheries in the world. Drawing on a team of field-leading researchers, Jenner and Thuy provide an empirical study of the global ocean's most contested sea space. The volume's four parts offer an insightful analysis of the significance of the South China Sea to the international order; sub-national agents of influence on relations between states; the disputes over sovereignty through the analytical prism of international law; and the conflictful region's prospects. The primary source-based conclusion elucidates the agency of history and strategy in the South China Sea.

The South China Sea region contains potentially huge deposits of petroleum and natural gas, important shipping lanes and fishing areas, and is subject to a number of maritime territorial disputes. This edited volume analyzes the most recent development in the South China Sea dispute looking at the positions taken by China, the ASEAN countries, and the US. In recent years maritime joint development zones have emerged as an important means to overcome deadlock in relation to maritime jurisdictional claims. This book tests the applicability of joint development regime in this region and explores the prospect of joint development of resources as a way to successfully manage the conflict in the South China Sea. Eminent scholars in the field of South China Sea studies have contributed original chapters to the volume covering such issues as: the legal framework for joint development; how joint development might work in practice; the challenges faced by and the prospects arising from joint development; and the way forward for the region.

Boundary disputes in the South China Sea have been a long-standing threat to peace and security in East and Southeast Asia. Without agreed definition of boundaries, provisional arrangements to develop resources in the disputed area have become the favored, and most effective, solution. Therefore, joint development between various countries has taken place in the form of ad hoc arrangements with the goal of achieving positive outcomes for all parties involved. Incorporating insights from ten authors from six countries (Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam), this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the incentives and policies to joint development in the South China Sea disputes. The authors also discuss the bottlenecks and proposed policy options. The authors ease doubts over joint development in South China Sea disputes and shed light on creative ways to promote cooperation. The book is a key reference for students and scholars in politics and international relations, Asian Studies, and maritime law.

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.

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.

Not only is the South China Sea of strategic importance; it is also rich in oil and other natural resources. As such, it is the subject of overlapping territorial disputes between several East and Southeast Asian countries as well as the scene of military tensions and potentially dangerous conflicts. But disputes over the South China Sea are much more complex than simply issues of military security. Environmental values, economic security and political developments are also involved. Spanning the full complexity of the situation, this volume: * covers its historical and legal background * analyses its environmental, economic, military and political dimensions * assesses the potential for containing and resolving disputes as well as transforming the structures of conflict in the region.

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.

Major law and policy issues in the South China Sea are discussed mainly from the perspectives of leading American and European scholars in the study of the complex South China Sea disputes. The issues include regional maritime cooperation and regime building, Southeast Asian countries’ responses to the Chinese assertiveness, China’s historic claims, maritime boundary delimitation and excessive maritime claims, military activities and the law of the sea, freedom of navigation and its impact on the problem, the dispute between Vietnam and China, confidence-building measures and U.S.-Taiwan-China relations in the South China Sea, and Taiwan’s role in the resolution to the South China Sea issues. Over the past three years, there have been several incidents in the South China Sea between the claimants, and also between the claimants and non-claimants over fisheries, collection of seismic data, exploration for oil and gas resources, and exercise of freedom of navigation. Third party concerns and involvement in the South China Sea disputes have been increasing as manifested in actions taken by the United States, India, and Japan. It is therefore important to examine South China Sea disputes from the legal and political perspective and from the view point of American and European experts who have been studying South China Sea issues for many years.

The South China Sea, where a number of great powers and regional players contend for influence, has emerged as one of the most potentially explosive regions in the world today. What can be done to reduce the possibility of conflict, solve the outstanding territorial problems, and harness the potential of the sea to promote regional development, environmental sustainability and security? This book, with contributions from leading authorities in China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, Singapore and the United States, seeks to illuminate these questions.