Reactions to US operations in the South China Sea demonstrate that China and the United States seem to have established a working protocol for issues they disagree on
China’s rise may be bringing an end to the Gramscian notion of western hegemony and thereby creating a new kind of balance of power.
India’s strategic-military arrangements are implicitly China-centric, and with increasing significance for the balance of power in the South China Sea.
Since the tension over the disputes in the South China Sea has been escalating in recent years, establishing a Code of Conduct has become a pressing need.
The focus of peace effort for the past decade in the region has been on a specific Code of Conduct, a set of norms that recognizes the rule of UNCLOS in the settlement of maritime territorial disputes. The more the disputes become a matter of legal norms, the less benefits could be achieved by means of dangerous military demonstrations.
The roots of the South China Sea disputes originate in the results of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Coming to terms with China as it exerts its power will be pricey, yet necessary.
The strategic landscape in South East Asia is reordering. Southeast Asians and Americans must convince China that the “nine-dotted line” South China Sea is a bridge too far.
China’s traditional inward-looking nature is gradually giving way to a more expansive maritime presence, as demonstrated in both Beijing’s rhetoric and actions. Despite myriad regional maritime disputes, naval cooperation in the Asia-Pacific remains both possible and desirable.
China’s new leadership will inherit a complex, and highly contested security environment from Sino-US relations to territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
The focus on the South China Sea at the Shangri-La Dialogue will be a welcome addition to the diplomatic efforts to avoid conflict. But it will take many more years of concerted diplomacy to settle this thorny issue.
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