China's Next Big Move

The current Status Quo is complete US political and military domination in the South-China Sea, United States dominated and dictated trade deals, and unipolarity of hegemonic power (Beckley 2011) All of which, if China desires to grow its power, must challenge.

The major actors involved in the Chinese challenge include the US government, the Chinese Government, US and Chinese businesses, and the American Citizens. When analyzing the hierarchy of goals for the Chinese government, it is important to note that the Chinese Communist Party is not democratically elected. Their mandate to govern has been based on China’s strong economic performance. Above all else, it is crucial for the Chinese government to maintain its economic success. 29% of China’s GDP is composed of exports of goods and services.

The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World, by Ho-fung Hung. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.

Morrison, Bruce Vaughn, and William Kennedy; the evolution and rise of China’s strength through soft power were discussed. Beginning on Yiwei Wang’s piece, its focus point aims at the redefining of China from a hard power into a soft power by rebranding its international image to suit its goals. (Wang, 2005) In the piece, China’s difficulties in achieving a full rebranding began the piece, yet its transformation has seen its return in success by going “from soft power to soft rise” with its ambitions in achieving this power. Going into Thomas Lum, Wayne M. Morrison, and Bruce Vaughn’s piece, the means China had used to actually reach this point of soft power were discussed especially focussing on its focus in Southeast Asia by conducting non-military inducements including culture, diplomacy, foreign aid, trade, and investment throughout the region. Through these non-military acts throughout the region, negative imagery previously associated with China during the Mao era had begun to be forgotten, in order to think of China as their hero of sorts. (Lum, Morrison, Vaughn, 2008) Lastly, through Kennedy’s piece these goals are reiterated in both the means China has been using to boost its soft power as well as the benefits of economic and diplomatic gains through the success of their gains in soft power, as well as reiterating Nye’s point in the strengths achievable through successful soft power usage. (Kennedy, 2016)

China has used historical claims to justify its territorial usurpations in the South China Sea. China’s territorial claims are causing conflict in the region as Beijing seeks to control more area of the South China Sea, with one such example being the declaration of Chinese control out to the “Nine dashed line.” Additionally, it is only in the last one hundred or so years that China has

In the past decade, China’s foreign policy has alarmed their neighbors prompting the United States to take a proactive role in the Asia-Pacific. Nonetheless, China continues to test the waters with the United States. The 2010 Senkuku Boat Collision Incident revealed how effective Chinese economic sanctions were in compelling Japan to release the Minjinyu 5719 crew. Consequently, the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership remains confident that their economic clout will insulate China from retaliation as they continue to advance their national interest.

Around the year 2015 China has started building artificial islands on disputed territory in the South China Sea for the purpose of resource mining, installment of surveillance and defensive infrastructures. Countries in the South China Sea that lay economic and territorial claims such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Japan have expressed security concerns regarding China’s aggressive expansion unto territories such as the Spratyl Islands and Rubi Reef as China had increased security and surveillance in this territory may lead to conflict in trade, fishing, and other activities in the South China Sea. China’s expansion into the South China Sea is an issue to U.S. Foreign policy as claiming of the territories is goes against international

Since September 2015, China has begun to increase the arming of the islands in the South China Sea on the islands that China claims belongs to them. The claiming of the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands by China are creating panic for its neighbors, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Because, China is ignoring the claims the nations have on the Islands in the South China Sea. Most recently, China has made a political decision to deploy missiles on Woody Island in the South China Sea, an island that is very close to the Philippines and Taiwan. China claims that the island belongs only to China and no one else, but there are Vietnamese, Philippine, and Taiwanese claims on the islands in the South China Sea as well that China is ignoring that is creating unrest in the South China Sea.

As of today, China has expanded and built over seven artificial islands in the South China Sea since 2014. The South China Sea has recently come to be a major problem in Asia as issues have risen over who has rights of passage and claims in this area. The Chinese of recent have been making territorial claims in the South China Sea that are in areas of free passage for many other Asian countries and the United States. In October 2015, a U.S. guided missile destroyer encountered one of the artificial islands and China’s response was that it would “take any measure” to maintain its security in “their territory”. The Chinese have been questioned in the Permanent Court of Arbitration by the Philippines after claiming rights to historical locations in the South China Sea, which violates sovereign rights of the Philippines, yet China responded to this outcome with refusal and has continued to advance itself in the territory causing huge disputes with its neighboring countries as freedom of navigation has been compromised through China’s actions.. In order to guarantee resolution and maintain the freedom of navigation aspect of international law there needs to be a foreign policy put in place that puts more United States military in the South China Sea with support from disputing countries like Japan and the Philippines as a way to make the issue multilateral and law abiding.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become more integrated and willing to cooperate within the global political and economic systems than ever in its history. However, there is growing apprehension in the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S. in regards to the consequences of rising in economic and military power in China. Descriptions about Chinese diplomacy in the policy and scholarly are less positive lately concerning China’s obedience to regional and international rules. There was little debate in the U.S. and elsewhere in regards to whether China was or was not part “the international community.” Scholars and experts in the early 1990s have contended

Realism assumes that under a balance of power, the overriding aim of all states is to maximize power and become the only hegemony in the system. States only help themselves in the anarchic international system. Therefore, China’s rise is regarded as a disconcerting threat to the U.S.’s primacy of power in the present international stage. The power shift in East Asia is creating security dilemmas; the U.S. thus demands more security to its Asian allies including Philippines, Japan and South Korea. The rapidly-rising Chinese power would inevitably challenge the current international balance of power and appear aggressively in the eyes of weaker power such as the Philippines. Therefore it seeks help to its ally, the U.S., to counterbalance the power of China. China intends to gain more resources and to transform current international order to its favor according to its national interests. The 2010 Chinese White Paper on National Defence states that: “Contradictions continue to surface between developed and developing countries and between traditional

The territorial and maritime disputes over the South China Sea (SCS) have been ongoing for decades. The disputes have been considered to be one the fiercest-contested in Asia. The South China Sea is an enclosed sea surrounded by several different states. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan, and Malaysia all surrounded the South China Sea. The main cause of tension in this dispute is because China claims to have “historical sovereignty” over all of the South China Sea. Associations of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have come up with different discussions and suggestions on how to end the disputes with favorable conditions for all contending states. They use the principles of the United Nation Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and form the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC). The states surrounding the South China Sea possess 12 nautical miles territorial sea and 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Thus, the South China Sea is not only international waters, instead, it is also overlapping exclusive economic zones. According to UNCLOS, disputes over exclusive economic zones must be resolved through negotiations by the contending states. Many of these contending Southeast Asian states have negotiated their maritime boundaries, however, China fails to comply. China claims that it owns all of the South China Sea, and therefore, has no need to

In order to better understand the dispute of these islands and this body of water, geography plays a role considering the area sea is located to borders on many different regions. According Chmillier-Gendreau (2000), the south-west of the Indian Ocean, the sea connects with the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. To the north-east, the sea connects with the Sea of Japan and the Strait of Korea. The position of this body of water is interconnected with many other bodies of waters which coincide with many countries. The islands residing in the middle of this sea therefore lies in the middle of many different countries. The two islands, Spratly and Paracel Islands lie in the middle of the maritime zone. Since it is in the middle, no neighboring country is really physically connected to these islands by geography (Chemillier-Gendreau, 2000, p. 16). Despite that fact, China and Vietnam both claim sovereignty over these islands based on historical and

Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute is defined as a territorial dispute over a group of islands in East China Sea called Senkaku (Japan), Diaoyu (China) or Tiaoyutai (Taiwan). The dispute has been a main focus of Sino-Japanese political and military conflicts for a long time. Meanwhile, in order to strengthen its dominance in the Asia-Pacific area, the US government aligned with Japan to contain China’s power, making the issue more complicated. Therefore, today, Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute is not only a Sino-Japanese territorial dispute, but also a comprehensive confrontation among China, US and Japan to contend for the dominance in the Asia-Pacific area.

In the Western Pacific, the South China Sea is a global crossroads that holds strategic importance for many nations world wide. The South China Sea stretches from the Taiwan and Luzon Straits in the north to Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca in the south with Vietnam on the west and the Philippines and Borneo on the east. In total size, the South China Sea surpasses the Mediterranean Sea. However, unlike this Near-Eastern comparator, territorial disputes and conflicting claims threaten the movement of global trade through the South China Sea, thus unbalancing regional stability in the Asia-Pacific. Claimants include the bordering coastal countries of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan), the