South China Sea Dispute in 2018
This chapter focuses on the South China Sea (SCS) disputes that are indeed significant due to the geo-strategic positions. Global Times has used the security/military, diplomacy and analysis as strong frames, which coincides with the militarization, multi
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South China Sea Dispute in 2018
The South China Sea (SCS), as the world’s second busiest international sea lane, is a ‘strategic maritime link and a vital gateway for shipping’ (Singh, 2012). More than $5 trillion worth of trade passes through the SCS each year. It is also a vital transit route for military vessels between Asia, the Middle East, and Europe (Hayton, 2017). The SCS is often regarded as ‘a major source of tension and instability’ in East Asia (Thao & Amer, 2009). The disputes are about the most complex territorial and maritime issues that dominate the regional security agenda in the twenty- first century (Mishra, 2017; Sison III, 2018). It also raises questions about the nature of international law, the link between law’s validity and efficacy in particular (Sison III, 2018). The SCS disputes are particularly critical because of the strategic importance of the SCS to China, the United States, and other states (Hayton, 2017). The disputes involve more than 20 countries and regions. China is at the heart of the disputes claiming more than 80% of the SCS with its ‘Nine-Dash Line’. Other major claimants include the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. Third-party countries such as the US and Japan also involve in the disputes as part of their global strategies (Guo, Mays & Wang, 2019). The SCS disputes are unique for three reasons: the importance of the sea lanes; the sheer number of parties involved; and the dispute has turned into a power struggle between China and the US with Southeast Asia caught in the middle (Ravindran, 2012). Specifically, the disputes consist of two layers: First, territorial or sovereignty disputes over land features © The Author(s) 2020 S. I. Zhang, Media and Conflict in the Social Media Era in China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7635-5_5
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(rocks and reefs) governed by international law. Second, maritime disputes over delimitation of maritime zones governed by the 1982 UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), the so-called Constitution for the Oceans, and whether states can restrict the operation of military vessels in national waters (Hayton, 2017; Sison III, 2018). There are two main archipelagos under dispute – the Paracel Islands (Xisha in Chinese) and the Spratly archipelago (Nansha in Chinese) (Storey, 2013). The SCS is becoming more central to Chinese national security. President Xi Jinping stated that China must become a ‘maritime great power’ to achieve ‘the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ (Wood, 2019). China’s preferred approach to resolve the disputes is through bilateral relations and consultation with the ‘countries directly concerned’, namely, the coastal states of the SCS, to legitimize the Nine-Dash Line (Sison III, 2018). However, as Wood (2019) noted, both the Chinese island building campaign and the uncertainties for states concerning China’s Nine-Dash Line lead to greater tensions in the region, and make the SCS one of the riskier points of potential conflict in the world today. Similarly
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