Maritime Strategy in a Changing World: U.S. Policy towards the South China Sea under the Obama Administration

Abstract

The South China Sea issue has long attracted the attention of the international community due to its strategic geopolitical location in the Asia-Pacific as well as the risk of conflicts between China and Southeast Asian countries. The sea is also where countries in the region are witnessing the strong rise of China through its expansionist ambition to realize its nine-dotted line claim in order to promote its sovereignty over the South China Sea. Over the past decade, China’s unilateral and escalating actions in the South China Sea have made countries both inside and outside the region deeply concerned. In that context, Chinese actions have seriously threatened U.S. interests in the South China Sea in particular, simultaneously challenging the U.S. leadership in the region in general. As a result, the U.S. government under the Obama administration has made strategic adjustments in its policy towards the issue to cope with China’s ambition in the South China Sea. Therefore, this thesis will analyse the main adjustments under the Obama administration. Through the analysis, the thesis will argue that there has been a transformation in U.S. policy towards the issue from a neutral position to taking a more assertive position. This transformation can be seen when the United States under the Obama administration took substantial measures such as upgrading its level of interest in the South China Sea, enhancing the internationalization of the issue and identifying China‘s actions as the main cause of escalating tensions in the South China Sea, as well as actively increasing its support for smaller states in the dispute with China. The thesis will examine the adjustments made by the Obama administration from the perspective of neo-realism. According to neo-realists, a state that achieves regional hegemony will try to prevent other great powers from attaining regional hegemony in other regions. Therefore, the neo-realist approach will offer a convincing way to analyse and explain why the Obama administration made these adjustments.