2. Literature Review
2.1 Context of the South China Sea Disputes
The waters and coastal areas of the South China Sea have been host to human activity for thousands of years. However, the concept of political territory as it is understood today is a much more recent phenomenon, and it was not until the 1800s that incompatible maritime territorial claims in the contemporary sense of the term began to take shape in the South China Sea. Even then, littoral states’ interest in South China Sea territory was relatively muted while European governments and merchants started to invest heavily in surveying, mapping, claiming, and eventually controlling its waters. In March 1909, a team of Japanese explorers harvesting guano on Pratas Island were confronted by a Chinese ship, which later returned to the mainland to report the news. As the earliest documented confrontation in the South 2 China Sea between regional powers, the event and its a ermath were an early sign of things to come.
Throughout the twentieth century, littoral states gradually gained interest in staking their claims to maritime territory in the South China Sea. In the early years, naval landings and military occupations were temporary and mostly symbolic in nature. As political boundaries shi ed around the world in the years following World War II, territorial grabs in the South China Sea involving permanent occupations became increasingly common. In 1956, Taiwanese (Republic of China) forces
garrisoned troops on Itu Aba (Taiping) Island. The Philippines’ territorial ambitions shi ed from concept to reality in 1970–1 when it occupied five sea features in the Spratly Islands. In the mid-1970s, tensions over territorial disputes between China 3 and (South) Vietnam escalated with the latter taking control of six features in the Spratlys in 1973, its first such offensive. In early 1974, the military engagement between the two sides, later referred to as the Battle of the Paracel Islands, resulted
2 Bill Hayton, The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.
3 M. Taylor Fravel, Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China’s Territorial Disputes , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008, p. 278.
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in China’s first seizure of South China Sea territory when the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) gained control of the Crescent Group of islands and reefs. 4 Malaysia came into the fold in the 1980s, newly occupying sea features in 1983 and again in 1986.
As countries jostled to assert their claims, territorial expansion through military means during these years was for the most part politically motivated.
Economic motivations remained limited given the lack of advanced technology for the exploration and exploitation of living and non-living maritime resources in the waters of the South China Sea. It was only in the late-1980s and 1990s that the disputes emerged as one of the key policy issues in Asia-Pacific regional relations.
Several key factors contributed to the mainstream recognition of the economic and strategic significance of the South China Sea. First among these was the shi in global political order towards the end of and a er the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union and resulting dissolution of the bipolar global power structure paved the way for a diversification of relevant actors and focus on territorial issues that had previously been overshadowed by the struggle between the two great powers. 5
Second, the unilateral actions of several claimant states led to a reorganization of territorial claims and triggered responses from regional actors affected by the actions. The nineties marked the first period of regular military confrontations on and around the islands. Third, the initial exploration and discovery of energy resources led to a widespread realization of the economic potential hidden beneath the surface of the South China Sea.
Into the twenty-first century, the further evolution of these three factors continued to amplify the significance of the South China Sea. Power shi s led to a reconfiguration of the Asia-Pacific geopolitical landscape, particularly with the emergence of China as a pivotal economic and political actor. Unilateral actions, maritime incidents, and military engagements continued to take place on a regular
4 John W. Garver, “China’s push through the South China Sea: the interaction of bureaucratic and national interests,” The China Quarterly 132: 999–1028, 1992, p. 1001,
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/654191>.
5 Timo Kivimäki (ed.), War or Peace in the South China Sea? , Copenhagen: Nias Press, 2002.
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basis, resulting in intense but fleeting periods of escalation in bilateral relations.
Meanwhile, oil and natural gas exploration capabilities continued to improve, bringing the exploitation of energy resources into sharper focus. Today, in addition to the political significance of maintaining territorial integrity, this drive for
securing potential resources remains one of the most crucial factors fueling tensions over the South China Sea issue. 6
As the site of intense interaction and trigger of dramatic fluctuations in tensions between states with incompatible maritime territorial interests, the South China Sea is naturally primed for analyses of state involvement and tensions over time. Conflicting claims among seven claimants compounded with the economic and political interests of rival claimants and major non-claimant stakeholders offer myriad instances of interaction that are covered by news media outlets around the world that, in turn, provide an abundance of data for analysis. Figure 1 shows the complexity of overlapping territorial claims.
6 Ralf Emmers, Resource Management and Contested Territories in East Asia , Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, <https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137310149>.
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Figure 1: Conflicting claims to islands and other sea features in the South China Sea7
Note: Solid lines indicate complete claims over the territory; dashed lines indicate partial claims.
Although academic and non-academic analyses of maritime territorial disputes in the region have proliferated in recent years, few studies have sought to apply scientific models based on empirical evidence to explain the dynamics of state interaction in the South China Sea. It is this significant gap in knowledge that this dissertation seeks to fill.
7 Author, 2017.
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