For centuries, the struggle for influence in the South China Sea has gained increasing importance, not only because of the interests of the countries involved, as it serves as a passageway for about one-third of global maritime shipping, but also due to the growing international competition, amplified by China’s rise as an economic power capable of rivaling the major global forces. However, the dispute over sovereignty in the South China Sea has escalated rapidly in recent years, posing a serious threat, particularly between China and its neighbors. While China defends its sovereignty, which encompasses large portions of the South China Sea, it constructs artificial islands to assert control and patrols the waters. Meanwhile, the United States has further inflamed the conflict in the region. Despite claiming neutrality in regional disputes, the U.S. has sent warships and military aircraft near the contested areas, where both sides accuse each other of militarizing the South China Sea.
This situation raises concerns about the possibility of a military clash in the region, which could have dire consequences not only for regional security in East and Southeast Asia but also for global security and the freedom of international trade. The danger of this conflict is further heightened by the enormous costs that various countries could incur if this dispute escalates into armed conflict, as the South China Sea has become a battleground for competition between the United States and China. This study, therefore, explores the future of the conflict in the South China Sea in light of the strategies pursued by competing powers in the region.
The Strategic Importance of the South China Sea
The South China Sea is located west of the Pacific Ocean, covering an area of about 3.5 million square kilometers. It is bordered to the north by the southern coast of China, to the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, to the east by Taiwan and the northwestern Philippines, and to the south by the island of Borneo, which is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. To the east of Borneo lies the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Bangka Belitung. The South China Sea contains several groups of mostly uninhabited small islands, coral reefs, and hundreds of underwater mountains. Among the most important of these islands are:
The Spratly Islands: Consisting of more than 100 islands spread across 11 territories, covering an area of up to 1,000 square kilometers. The conflict between China and Vietnam over these islands led to a military confrontation on January 19, 1974, after which the islands fell under full Chinese control.
The Paracel Islands: Following China’s victory over Vietnam in 1974, the Paracel Islands came under Chinese control. Located between the southern coast of Hainan Island and central Vietnam, they consist of 10 islands and rocky reefs, covering an area of 200 square kilometers.
The Pratas Islands: These islands are located 300 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong, 548 kilometers south of Taiwan, and 500 kilometers northwest of Luzon, the largest of the Philippine islands. They remained under Taiwanese control for a long time.
The Macclesfield Bank: Located about 300 kilometers southeast of the Paracel Islands, it stretches 140 kilometers in length and 60 kilometers in width. It is a low-lying sandbank made up of small islands and is under the administration of China’s Sansha region, though it is also claimed by Taiwan.
The significance of these islands lies in their geographical role as gateways to the sea, making control over them essential for influencing global trade and navigation. Threatening to close them off could have severe negative impacts on countries that rely on maritime trade. Therefore, the parties involved in the conflict seek to assert their claims to these islands through conflicting historical narratives. China claims to have been the first to discover these islands, and the conflict over the Spratly and Paracel Islands is particularly intense due to their importance, though it is less severe over the Pratas Islands and Macclesfield Bank.
Additionally, the South China Sea holds significant economic, environmental, and geopolitical importance. It serves as a transit route for about one-third of global maritime trade, with an estimated value of $3.37 trillion annually. China relies on the South China Sea for around 80% of its energy imports, representing 39.5% of its total trade. Historically, the South China Sea has been a direct link between China, Southeast Asia, India, and Europe. The region is also believed to hold oil and natural gas reserves amounting to between 23 and 30 billion tons of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Furthermore, it is rich in mineral and fish resources, which are crucial for food security for millions in Southeast Asia. The strategic importance of the sea has increased due to vital communication cables that extend across it, providing international telecommunications services, making the area a focal point of competition between regional and international powers.
Context of Tensions in the South China Sea
The South China Sea is bordered by six nations that have been vying for sovereignty over parts of it. For centuries, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei have disputed claims in the region. While the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Brunei assert sovereignty over overlapping areas, China insists it has historical rights, citing ancient records that claim the Chinese were the first to discover the South China Sea in the 2nd century BCE. Beijing regards these historical accounts as evidence of its sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and the surrounding waters.
The modern roots of this conflict trace back to the post-World War II era when China declared sovereignty over all the South China Sea islands. In November 1946, China sent warships to assert control over the islands. This conflict was further solidified by the introduction of what became known as the “Nine-Dash Line,” which the Chinese government announced through a map published on December 1, 1947, defining China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Since then, Beijing has reinforced its stance by constructing artificial islands in the sea and patrolling its waters. China’s policy of building these islands began in 2013, particularly around the Spratly and Paracel Islands. These actions have drawn widespread international condemnation, leading to concrete measures such as the United States and other countries, like France and the United Kingdom, conducting what is known as “freedom of navigation” operations since 2015. These artificial islands pose a significant risk because they allow China to claim exclusive territorial waters and special economic zones where it can monopolize resource exploration. Furthermore, the islands hold immense military importance, as they host advanced military bases that rival Western aircraft carriers.
Although the United States claims neutrality in these territorial disputes, Washington’s warships and military aircraft regularly patrol the area as international waters, including regions near the disputed islands. These operations aim to keep sea and air routes open for all, according to the American perspective. This has led to accusations from both Beijing and Washington of militarizing the South China Sea, raising concerns that the region could gradually move toward a point of conflict, with potentially dire global consequences.
Tensions escalated in July 2016 when the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that China had no legal basis to claim the majority of the strategic waters of the South China Sea. The ruling fully supported the Philippines’ stance in the case, stating that there was no legal foundation for China’s claims of historical rights over resources in the waters within the Nine-Dash Line, which is based on maps from the 1940s. After the court’s decision, disputes in the South China Sea extended to conflicts over islands, reefs, shoals, and other areas, including the Spratly and Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, and various boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin. Other disputes involve territorial waters near Indonesia’s Natuna Islands, which many do not consider part of the South China Sea. The nations involved are primarily interested in access to fishing stocks, oil, and natural gas exploration in different parts of the seabed, as well as strategic control over important shipping lanes.
However, the conflict took a more dangerous turn last August, marked by diplomatic protests from disputing parties, especially the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan, in response to China’s announcement of the “Ten-Dash Line” map, which expands its claims to approximately 90% of the South China Sea. In this context, the Philippines reaffirmed its rejection of the map, as it includes areas already ruled upon by the 2016 international court decision in favor of Manila. Malaysia also rejected any Chinese attempts to seize its territory. Naval maneuvers have continued in the South China Sea among the competing powers, the latest of which saw the Philippine Coast Guard accusing Chinese vessels last Sunday of dangerous maneuvers during a nine-day patrol near a coral reef off the shores of the Southeast Asian nation. China denied the accusations, claiming the Philippine ship had illegally intruded into the waters multiple times. Earlier this month, Manila deployed the “BRP Teresa Magbanua” to patrol the waters surrounding Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
The Role of ASEAN in Conflict Management
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) adopts a fundamental principle of resolving regional conflicts through peaceful means. Thus, maintaining regional peace and security is one of ASEAN’s primary goals, as it serves as a model for regional integration and collective action among its member states. However, ASEAN faces many political and economic challenges in resolving political conflicts. These challenges include finding common mechanisms to support economic cooperation while maintaining reservations about disputes with other countries. Additionally, ASEAN aims to strengthen existing regional cooperation mechanisms to avoid the dominance of major powers in the region due to various geopolitical considerations.
Since 1992, ASEAN’s first declaration on the South China Sea took no sides but emphasized the non-use of force. It urged all parties, whether ASEAN members or not, to exercise restraint and called on all claimants to adopt this declaration, adhering to the principles of the Treaty of Amity as a basis for establishing a Code of Conduct. In November 2002, all ASEAN foreign ministers and China’s special envoy signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. By 2004, ASEAN and China had agreed on an action plan and guidelines for implementation in 2011.
In 2012, ASEAN reached what is known as the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which stipulated that it would transform into an agreement within 10 years. However, this period has passed without ratification by ASEAN countries. China considers this declaration a basis for regulating navigation in the disputed sea, in addition to the nine-dash line that China adopted as geographical boundaries, despite the rejection of these points by other disputing parties. Successive U.S. statements have also indicated opposition to both the declaration and the nine-dash line.
Amid increasing tensions in the South China Sea dispute, China and ASEAN held their first joint naval exercise in October 2018, aiming to ease tensions with ASEAN members. This was part of the various mechanisms ASEAN follows to avoid escalating open confrontation in the sea. These exercises expanded in 2019 to include the United States, which conducted joint naval drills with ASEAN countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia on a large scale. At the same time, the U.S. has consistently increased its arms sales to ASEAN countries, selling drones and armored vehicles to Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. In September of the past year, ASEAN units conducted their first joint military exercises in the Natuna Sea in Indonesia amid growing geopolitical tensions between major powers and protests against China’s activities in the South China Sea. These exercises aimed to enhance military skills, particularly security, maritime patrols, food aid distribution, and relief efforts.
The years of conflict in the South China Sea have revealed that ASEAN’s passive stance on disputes has weakened its international image, raising questions about its credibility as an effective regional organization. Part of ASEAN’s weakness in resolving the South China Sea conflict stems from the fact that the ten member states either have direct interest ties with major powers, especially China and the United States, or seek to balance their relations with those powers. This has prevented the organization from adopting a unified position on any issue concerning the South China Sea. Moreover, several ASEAN countries do not border the South China Sea and thus do not feel directly involved in the conflict.
Chinese Influence vs. American Intervention
The United States does not have any sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, but it has strongly criticized what it calls China’s aggression. Washington insists that freedom of navigation for commercial vessels is vital for regional and international trade. Hence, the U.S. conducts joint military patrols with the Philippines, Japan, Australia, and Indonesia and has increased financial support to boost the military capabilities of ASEAN and East Asian countries. This also includes strengthening bilateral defense cooperation with these countries, with the goal of maintaining U.S. dominance over the Indo-Pacific region through two contradictory strategies: the first, forming alliances with regional countries to confront China militarily, and the second, pursuing diplomatic avenues and establishing an Asian peace with Beijing.
In contrast, China seeks to strengthen its presence and control over its territory and waters in the South China Sea, defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity based on historical and geographical evidence. To this end, China has launched numerous initiatives to cooperate with countries bordering the sea in energy, fisheries, and infrastructure projects. These moves are seen as attempts to counter U.S. and Western influence and curb the expansion of U.S. involvement in the region through Beijing’s intensified efforts.
From a military perspective, China has worked to establish a maritime protection zone in the South China Sea, transforming the coral reefs there into artificial islands, which it has turned into military bases. These actions are a source of significant dispute with Japan. Beijing has also worked on establishing a unified naval defense zone extending from the Yellow Sea to the East and South China Seas, allowing Chinese nuclear submarines to realize their counterattack capabilities and enable the advancement of aircraft carriers, especially after the U.S. Navy announced exercises in the South China Sea following the Chinese balloon crisis. This escalated the region into a cycle of responses and counter-responses with maneuvers between Washington and Beijing.
However, current global indicators suggest the difficulty of provoking China in its own region or getting involved in a conflict with it. China’s influence in the region remains stronger than that of the U.S., bolstered by its historical legitimacy and legal standing for its actions in the region. Over recent years, China has developed its naval strength, surpassing other regional and international powers militarily, making it the world’s largest naval force by the number of ships. Additionally, China’s economic and financial capabilities enable it to engage in a war with any power that claims sovereignty over the South China Sea.
Strategies of Competing Powers in the South China Sea
The increasing pattern of militarization in interactions within the South China Sea points to an intense struggle for influence, driven by regional sovereignty disputes among the coastal states, whose relative strengths and critical masses differ significantly compared to China. The strategies of the United States and China in managing the conflict in the South China Sea can be outlined as follows:
Logistical Cooperation
The U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with the Japanese and Australian armed forces in various logistical areas, such as the use of small transport ships to deliver weapons, personnel, and other supplies to forces stationed in the region. This cooperation aims to enhance these countries’ ability to counter threats posed by other states, such as China, which seeks to expand its influence in the region through its Belt and Road Initiative and the construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea.
Logistical cooperation between the United States, Japan, and Australia has been ongoing since the early 21st century, with these countries participating in several joint military exercises, such as “Malabar,” “Kiel,” and “Talisman Sabre,” to increase the interoperability of their forces. These nations have also signed bilateral or trilateral agreements to exchange information, expertise, and technology in various defense fields, including navigation, surveillance, reconnaissance, and missiles.
Military Bases
Amid rising tensions in the South China Sea, the U.S. military is seeking to strengthen its defense cooperation with its historical ally in the region, the Philippines. Both sides are in talks to increase the number of bases the U.S. military can access in the Philippines under their defense cooperation agreement. In 2014, the Philippines and the U.S. signed an agreement allowing the U.S. to station its forces, equipment, and aircraft at nine selected Philippine bases to improve training capabilities, disaster response, and regional security. In February last year, the Philippines announced the addition of four new bases to the list of available sites for the U.S., including three bases overlooking Taiwan and an air base near the disputed Spratly Islands. As a result, China accused the U.S. of fueling the conflict in the South China Sea when the Philippines increased the number of bases available to the U.S. military. In response, a Chinese aircraft carrier conducted drills off the northern coast of the Philippines.
U.S. Deterrence
The U.S. strategy of integrated deterrence encompasses a broad range of diplomatic, economic, technical, and military measures aimed at preventing China from imposing its military influence in the South China Sea. This effort includes stirring up hostilities and disputes over regional sovereignty in this crucial area, which separates the Indian and Pacific Oceans and serves as a vital conduit for international trade valued at $5 trillion annually. U.S. naval patrols are conducted almost daily.
The U.S. engages militarily to secure a wide regional front against Chinese military influence, with the primary goal of preventing China from taking control of Taiwan. It also works to challenge China’s presence in the South China Sea by conducting daily patrols that undermine the “Nine-Dash Line,” which China claims as the boundary of its maritime borders. This effort is reinforced by the U.S. military’s deployment in northern and southern Philippines. The effectiveness of the U.S. role depends on building a security alliance that includes regional powers that share its strategic view of the Indo-Pacific.
Counter-Containment
China employs a dual strategy to counter U.S. pressures backed by regional powers concerned about Beijing’s growing military influence. Beijing seeks to alleviate regional concerns and neutralize the U.S. military’s weight in the strategic environment, surrounded by conflicts. While China continues to project its military strength independently or in cooperation with its regional partners, it also emphasizes institutional diplomatic engagement to resolve disputes with neighboring countries like the Philippines. It works to undercut Taiwan’s independence aspirations, viewing the island as part of its territory under the “One China” principle, which is recognized by the majority of the international community.
China is reinforcing its claims by finalizing codes of conduct in the South China Sea, particularly with the Philippines and Southeast Asian nations, to curb tensions and prevent the escalation of military activities. China’s ultimate goal is to reduce the U.S. military presence in the region.
Conclusion
The tensions between Washington and its allies on one side and China on the other underscore the strategic importance of the South China Sea in the broader U.S.-China competition. This is due to the disputed resources and the region’s role as a major route for energy supplies and global maritime trade. The South China Sea is emerging as a pivotal element in both U.S. and Chinese strategies within the Indo-Pacific region, shaping the international order. Beyond Taiwan, the current U.S.-China rivalry presents an opportunity for the coastal states to secure concessions from both sides, depending on the extent of their engagement and each power’s ability to safeguard their interests. This dynamic encourages temporary cooperation with Washington until a favorable settlement with Beijing is reached, as many of these countries prefer not to bear the burden of opposing China directly.
