The Potential for Sino-US Discord in the South China Sea

The RUSI Journal, April 2011

For China, the South China Sea is an integral part of its political and economic strategy and wellbeing. Yet its increasingly bold territorial claims there have raised tensions with neighbouring states, as well as the US – the architect of the region’s security order. Legal wrangling and military confrontation over the last year show that, rather than Taiwan or Korea, it may be the issue of the South China Sea that inflames Sino–US tensions.