The U.S. Coast Guard intercepts an illegal Chinese fishing vessel off the coast of Japan, 2018. Credit: Coast Guard News/Flickr
ATLANTA – With US and Chinese warships increasingly playing chicken, and China transforming atolls and outcroppings into militarized artificial islands, the South China Sea presents a striking picture of Sino-American strategic competition. But China’s expansive assertion of offshore sovereignty is not only challenging others’ territorial rights and free navigation of international sea lanes. It also is threatening a central feature of the Southeast Asian ecosystem, and thus the region’s economic future.
China has refused to submit its territorial claims to international review, even though six of the ten countries surrounding the South China Sea have claims to various rocks, shoals, reefs, and resources within its 1.4 million square miles. China also has ignored the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s (PCA) 2016 ruling affirming the Philippines’ historic rights to the Spratly Islands and dismissing China’s outsize claim to some 90 percent of the South China Sea (based on
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
When China announced it was ending quarantine requirements for incoming travelers, Chinese people collectively picked up their phones to search popular travel apps like Ctrip and Qunar. Owned by travel giant Trip.com, these apps helped Chinese travelers explore the world pre-pandemic and facilitated the human-to-human interactions that drove China's rise. But many of today's travelers seem to be sticking closer to home, and their hesitation to get back to the jetsetting habits of the past 20 years has far-reaching implications — especially for Trip.com.
The professor talks about China's real estate bubble; if China can develop a modern financial system without rule of law; and why it's not China that is reshaping the global order, but the world's response...