China’s Self-Destructive Maritime Strategy

Everybody wants a piece of the South China Sea.

China’s Self-Destructive Maritime Strategy

MASAHIRO MATSUMURA

OSAKA – Once again, China’s territorial claims and construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea have dominated discussions at a meeting of Asian leaders, this time the East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur. And, once again, China has rebuffed all efforts to secure a multilateral agreement to end the protracted – and increasingly incendiary – standoff. Ironically, this stance threatens China’s interests most of all.

China obviously disagrees, which is why it is doubling down on its efforts to secure strategic hegemony in the South China Sea. Aiming to establish a fait accompli concerning its claims to sovereignty in the area, China has lately been engaged in concerted dredging and reclamation works on several reefs and shoals of the disputed Spratly Islands. And it has deployed military and paramilitary vessels and aircraft to the area, threatening freedom of navigation – something that US Secretary of State John Kerry firmly rejected in Kuala Lumpur.

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Source: project-syndicate.org