There has recently been a touch of disagreement on this site between Linda Jakobson of the Lowy Institute and Bonnie Glaser of CSIS about the motivations for China’s actions in the South China Sea.
In short, Jakobson argues that China’s decision-making can be explained by bureaucratic competition between China’s various maritime agencies, whereas Glaser says it’s the result of a deliberate, centrally organised policy of territorial expansion. While I genuflect before the long experience of both these analysts, I would like to suggest that we shouldn’t get too bogged down in this debate. It seems to me that the resolution is obvious: both Glaser and Jakobson are correct.
During the research for my book The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia, it became obvious to me that the main driver of the dispute is China’s sense of ownership of the South China Sea. This is something inculcated in school geography lessons and asserted without nuance or doubt in Communist Party schools, national media and – we can assume – Politburo meetings.
In my book I show how this sense emerged only in the early 20th century through the agitation of nationalist educationalists and some serious misreading of Southeast Asian history. The argument can be summarised as follows: because the Sultanate of Sulu once sent tribute to the Chinese court, all the water between Sulu and Beijing belongs to China. This is clearly nonsense but that doesn’t seem to stop a billion Chinese believing it. This is the foundation for China’s actions in the Sea. Glaser is right; for the past 40-plus years there has been a determined effort to assert China’s sense of entitlement in ever more concrete forms.