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This chapter introduces the rival territorial claimants, all of whom, besides China and Taiwan, are members of ASEAN, and their claims in the South China Sea. It provides historical background for several of the claims to the Paracel and Spratly island chains, focusing on those of China, which has been most successful in actualizing its claims. It analyses the shifts over time in China’s foreign policy in the region, highlighting efforts at cooperation near the turn of the century and China’s more aggressively asserting its claims in recent years. It lays out the two tales the book tells: the story of China’s efforts to divide ASEAN in pursuit of its territorial claims and the broader story of how China uses its financial power to influence foreign governments in developing states. The chapter also provides a justification for the selection of the three case studies in the book: China’s relations with Cambodia, the Philippines, and Myanmar, emphasizing variation in the key variable of political regime type. Finally, it introduces each subsequent chapter.

This chapter analyzes each ASEAN member state’s territorial claims and disputes both in and outside of the South China Sea as well as its current position regarding ASEAN efforts to negotiate multilaterally with China over rival South China Sea claims. It highlights the broad support for freedom of navigation within ASEAN as well as the stated desire of each government to pursue a peaceful resolution based on the Code of Conduct with China that the ASEAN members agreed to develop in Phnom Penh in 2002. The chapter makes clear that, despite the many overlapping and competing maritime territorial claims among ASEAN member states, these states have managed to cooperate to resolve disputes outside of the South China Sea and, unlike China, since the signing of the DOC have largely refrained from taking provocative actions related to contested claims within the region. The chapter further notes the important differences in the dynamics between, and preferences of, China and the rival ASEAN claimants in the South China Sea when compared to the cases of successful dispute resolution discussed in the chapter; the most obvious difference is the asymmetry in the balance of power between China and the other claimants.

The chapter summarizes the book’s findings on China’s efforts to divide ASEAN and conquer the South China Sea, using variation in member state’s reactions to the decision in favor of the Philippines by the tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration to illustrate the impact of China’s influence. The book concludes that because of the inherent differences within ASEAN, especially in political institutions, as well as the intrinsic difficulties of effective multilateralism and collective action, ASEAN will be unlikely to come together to force China to the negotiating table, as long as China wishes to resist taking a seat. The chapter notes that China’s efforts to influence states in the region have not always been successful, as the case studies illustrate; China has advantages in influencing developing state, authoritarian governments but faces more and higher hurdles in its efforts to influence developing state governments operating within relatively democratic institutions. A brief comparative analysis of China’s bilateral relations in Latin America suggests that the book’s findings are generalizable to China’s relations with developing states globally. The book concludes that the potential evolution of political institutions toward democracy is a form of long-term political risk facing Chinese efforts to influence developing state governments.

China has been addicted to US Treasuries and is financing the US lasting global power, defying the common conception that China is displacing US global leadership. China's geopolitical influence is growing in Asia and in the developing world, but it has been contained by the anxiety of smaller countries that seek US protection.

Tanxu fled Qingdao in an American military plane in 1949, ahead of advancing Communist Armies. Having survived the war with Japan, he and his colleagues feared their fate under an anti-religious Communist regime. Arriving in Hong Kong, Tanxu worked to revive the Buddhist community there, eventually becoming among the colony’s religious elite. To save Buddhist texts from destruction in mainland China, he established a library in Hong Kong to preserve books gathered from mainland temples and libraries. He also gave numerous lectures and presided over important Buddhist ceremonies, in this way continuing his work of promoting Buddhism and a particular Chinese cultural identity until his death in 1963.

This chapter examines the main issues for Vietnam since the launch of its Doi Moi (“renovation”) policy in the mid-1980s and its foreign policy in the past, present, and near future. The chapter also analyzes the country’s relationship with its two most important partners—China and the United States—with the main focus on the interactions among key players in the South China Sea.

Southeast Asia has strong ties with China in the areas of economics, diplomacy, and culture. China also has a security interest in the South China Sea, which has become a major source of conflict between China and the United States, due to American fears that China’s military buildup in the South China Sea may threaten American “freedom of navigation” in the sea and the entire Western Pacific. China’s main interest in Southeast Asia is defending its sovereignty and security in the South China Sea.

This chapter evaluates how the shipping lanes that traverse the South China Sea region are the lifelines of China's future and will shape and influence its trajectory as a great power. If China can maintain and control the regional sea lanes of communication and the trade and maritime logistics hubs across the region, it can expand and project power well beyond the region, fulfilling President Xi Jinping's “Chinese Dream” that seeks “the great rejuvenation of China.” The aggregate is that China has much riding on the future development, success, and prosperity of its Maritime Silk Road and maritime economy. The chapter examines China's growing dominance in shipping, shipbuilding, logistics and supply chains, fisheries and aquaculture (also known as aquafarming), and regional port acquisitions and development from Taiwan to Australia. Moreover, China's growing maritime geoeconomic entrenchment in Cambodia, Brunei, and Malaysia will make it increasingly harder for other regional and global powers — particularly the United States, India, Japan, Taiwan, and others — to compete economically in the maritime space. It also makes it more challenging to box China in regionally owing to its increasingly independent and reinforced maritime networks.

This chapter proposes additional policy options that the United States might pursue in the South China Sea. It recounts existing U.S. policy toward the South China Sea and finds that it is comprehensive, sensible, and well balanced. It focuses on creating stability by exhorting all parties to follow international law; it explicitly defines conflict solving; and it includes U.S. hard-power demonstrations as well as initiatives aimed at redressing some of the power imbalance between the Philippines, Vietnam, and China. It also incorporates deterrence by not ignoring America’s security alliance with the Philippines as well as providing for U.S. naval and air access. The chapter concludes by recommending several additional policy approaches while acknowledging the difficulty of getting Beijing to pay serious attention to U.S. objections to what Washington has called its “bullying” approach. Along the way it addresses what U.S. interests are involved in the South China Sea and makes the point that U.S. policy toward the South China Sea and China must be kept in perspective. The overall Sino-U.S. relationship is global in nature and involves many U.S. interests in which Beijing’s cooperation is necessary.

This chapter examines how the pursuit of market power over rare earth elements (REEs) influences China’s use of strategic delay in East and South China Seas. As the dominant global producer of REEs, China has the ability to set prices in this market. The desire to maintain this market power motivates China to continue to push its long-standing claims to sovereignty over seabed resources in the East and South China Seas. International institutions such as UNCLOS and the International Seabed Authority do not provide a dispute-resolution option that allows China to maintain unfettered access to deep sea mineral extraction. At the same time, China’s economic dependence on Japan and the global REE market constrains China from turning to military escalation to press its claims. Instead, China has relied upon strategic delay and gray zone tactics to gradually expand its presence in the East and South China Seas.

This chapter examines the impact of China's rise on its neighbors. All of China's neighbors see opportunities to benefit economically from China's growth, but they also face the prospect of increasing vulnerability to political domination by the Chinese. If the focus is limited to security, we can say that none of these countries—from India to Vietnam, Russia, South Korea, and Burma—is better off with China as a military great power. India, for example, believes that even the ostensibly economics-driven Chinese investments in new infrastructure linking China with India's neighbors have the strategic purpose of containing India by extending China's influence to India's doorstep. China's close relationship with India's longtime enemy and neighbor Pakistan is the clearest example of Chinese containment. As for Vietnam, several territorial disputes complicate its relations to China, including the one involving the South China Sea.

ASEAN has long promoted its key interests in a stable and autonomous Southeast by binding outside powers to ASEAN’s norms and institutions. Today, domestic political change, divergent interests among ASEAN countries, and the changing balance of power in the Asia-Pacific are eroding the ASEAN cohesion necessary for a collective ASEAN external policy. ASEAN policy is based on soft power and therefore is dependent on a stable balance of power. China’s rise has upset that balance, triggering Sino-American tensions and conflicts with some Southeast Asian states. ASEAN’s goals of regional stability and autonomy from great power hegemony are increasingly coming into conflict, which may force ASEAN members to choose between them.

This chapter examines smuggling in the South China Sea during the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries. The findings reveal that smuggling in the region has operated as big business for many centuries and that a variety of actors and interested parties have all participated in these activities. It considers the interplay among European, Chinese, and other Asian actors in smuggling and other clandestine activities over the past several centuries.

This chapter evaluates Chinese mistakes in managing US policy by examining three critical junctures of the relationship during the Obama administration. In President Obama’s first year in office (2009), Beijing failed to fully reciprocate Obama’s positive signals for a cooperative relationship. The second juncture came in February 2012, when Vice President Xi’s visit to Washington ignited high-level diplomacy for building a new model of major-country relationship. With the third juncture in late 2013 and early 2014, the relationship once again took a turn for the worse, and it did not recover during the rest of Obama’s tenure. China lacked a productive strategy for managing its relations with the US, and contradictions between its US and Asia policies undercut its goal of building a new relationship with the US.

This chapter focuses on women's work and women's food in the New Territories of Hong Kong in the twentieth century. It argues that in the study of early modern South China, the lineage model has obscured women's role in the production and consumption of sweet potatoes and swine, and in economic aspects of peasant families' ties beyond the descent group. It also demonstrates that an extreme version of the lineage model and a dichotomous approach to the study of women reinforce each other.

This chapter examines great power management of regional conflicts in East Asia and the degree to which authority over conflict management has been shared or diffused or challenged. In analysing the two critical conflicts with systemic impacts – those on the Korean Peninsula and in the South China Sea – it evaluates the degree to which the U.S. has been able to establish its hegemonic position pinned upon its authority to manage these conflicts. To a significant extent, the U.S. retains its hegemonic role in defining key public goods and in determining how these goods are to be provided and on what terms. It has been able to co-opt China onto its security agenda to some extent on the Korean Peninsula, but China’s authority in conflict management is relatively unproven. Other East Asian states have by and large continued to grant Washington authority as the regional security guarantor in these test cases.