South China Sea: Rising from the sea floor to a platform for regional stability or global volatility

Abstract

The South China Sea (SCS) represents an area of strategic and economic importance and remains inextricably linked to global economic growth and stability. Trade extending from this region is becoming a focal point for China’s continued economic development as they look to pursue infrastructure projects connecting the Eurasia region through the ‘New Silk Road.’ This will be funded by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and with the support of 57 nations, reinforcing a Chinese authority within the region. A component of President Xi Jinping’s grand strategy is the development of a modern blue water navy, to reach and actively patrol and secure territories within the SCS. In spite of a number of ongoing overlapping territorial claims, the SCS represents an area Beijing claims to have ‘indisputable sovereignty’ over. Using economic, military means and moral arguments to assert this sovereignty within the Asian region has been perceived as a direct challenge to the established international order managed and maintained by the United States. As a result, Washington also declared the SCS as an area of ‘national interest’ (to match China’s ‘core interest’ label ) and has increased military and diplomatic attention to the area since 2010. With concurrent military muscle flexing of these two superpowers within such a small maritime context, alongside increasing military activity by the claimant states, attention is now focussed on the potential for regional instability or conflict to spiral from this epicentre of maritime activity. International Relations realist theory supports the hypothesis that the current dynamic leads toward inevitable conflict, with the power transition theory using historical evidence of conflict to indicate a hegemon has been militarily challenged by a rising power, due to dissatisfaction with the world order. Alternatively, conflict has also occurred previously as a self-fulfilling prophecy due to the associated anxiety of facing a rising power, creating a Thucydides trap. Applying these concepts to the current dynamic within the South China Sea enables the identification of three potential outcomes; ongoing status quo, conflict between these two powers, or increasing power diffusion toward a more cooperative future environment. However, understanding the biographical-narrative of how this tipping point was created could further point to a future that moves through a combination of all three identified outcomes and is largely dependent on the wider state strategies underway.