Today's hearing will cover China's maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas. We'll examine the security, political, legal, and economic drivers of these disputes in our three panels today. The first panel will begin by discussing the broad security situation on the high seas. As China's maritime forces have become more capable over the past decade, Beijing has become more confident in its ability to assert its claims in the disputed areas. Beyond China's "hard" security concerns, however, other domestic, political, and legal elements shape China's policy in the East and South China Seas. Our second panel will consider popular nationalism as one of these elements. It has become a key driver of Chinese foreign policy as personality politics in Beijing has given way to a collective leadership seeking Party legitimacy. We'll conclude with a panel on how resources and economic drivers shape China's maritime disputes. Security of China's near seas is critical to the unimpeded flow of trade and imported energy resources. Though the natural resources in the East and South China Sea undoubtedly shape the security landscape, there appears to be a debate on the centrality of oil and gas resources to the dispute.

How are China's ongoing sovereignty disputes in the East and South China Seas likely to evolve? Are relations across the Taiwan Strait poised to enter a new period of relaxation or tension? How are economic interdependence, domestic public opinion, and the deterrence role played by the US likely to affect China's relations with its counterparts in these disputes? Although territorial disputes have been the leading cause for interstate wars in the past, China has settled most of its land borders with its neighbours. Its maritime boundaries, however, have remained contentious. This book examines China's conduct in these maritime disputes in order to analyse Beijing's foreign policy intentions in general. Rather than studying Chinese motives in isolation, Steve Chan uses recent theoretical and empirical insights from international relations research to analyse China's management of its maritime disputes.

The South China Sea is a major strategic waterway for trade and oil shipments to Japan, Korea as well as southern China. It has been the focus of a maritime dispute which has continued now for over six decades, with competing claims from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei. Recently China has become more assertive in pressing its claims – harassing Vietnamese fishing vessels and seizing reefs in the Philippine claim zone. China has insisted that it has "indisputable sovereignty" over the area and has threatened to enforce its claim. All of this is unsettling and draws in the United States which is concerned about freedom of navigation in the area. The US has been supporting the Philippines and has been developing security ties with Vietnam as a check upon China. This book examines the conflict potential of the current dispute, it discusses how the main claimants and the United States view the issue, and assesses the prospects for a resolution of the problem.

The South China Sea is arguably one of the world’s most dangerous regions, with conflicting diplomatic, legal, and security claims by major and mid-level powers. To assess these disputes, CSIS brought together an international group of experts—from Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam. This volume gathers these experts’ analyses to provide a diverse and wide-ranging set of perspectives on the region and to explore possibilities for future cooperation.

This volume offers a comprehensive and empirically rich analysis of regional maritime disputes in the South China Sea (SCS). By discussing important aspects of the rise of China’s maritime power, such as territorial disputes, altered perceptions of geo-politics and challenges to the US-led regional order, the authors demonstrate that a regional power shift is taking place in Asia-Pacific. The volume also provides in-depth discussions of the responses to Chinese actions by SCS claimants as well as by important non-claimant actors.

Satellite imagery and geospatial analysis tools offer an unprecedented opportunity to harness new technologies in order to help resolve boundary disputes. The South China Sea in Focus: Clarifying the Limits of Maritime Dispute uses these tools to provide a first and necessary step toward tackling the overlapping maritime disputes in the South China Sea: determining which waters are and are not in dispute under international law. The report opens with a set of geographic information system (GIS)–based maps that provide an easily understandable benchmark against which policymakers and academics can judge the claims and actions of the South China Sea claimants. More detailed color maps and methodological information follow for those who want to dig deeper into the claims and the report’s conclusions.

Maritime boundary disputes in the South China have existed for centuries, and researchers from a variety of countries have analysed the situation from a great many points of view. Yet, and despite its status as one of the major countries in the region, Chinese perspectives have often been absent from the international literature. This book redresses that balance. Bringing together scholarship from history and international law, this book provides a lens through which maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea can be interrogated. Not only does it detail the historical and jurisprudential evidence that support maritime boundaries in the South China Sea for different stakeholders, but it also clarifies some misconceptions related to China’s nine-dash lines by referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Moreover, the book offers in-depth discussion and observation on the most recent developments in the South China Sea. This book is an essential resource for researchers, teachers and students who specialize in Southeast Asian Studies, China maritime studies, and the international law of the sea.