Explaining China’s Assertiveness in Territorial Disputes in East and South China Sea

• In Event: The Rising Demands of a Rising China

Abstract

This paper provides a new explanation for the current assertiveness of China’s foreign policies in Asia. In contrast to existing popular explanations, attributing China’s assertiveness on territorial issues either to the rise of China’s material power or to changes in its domestic environment, such as the rising nationalism and the Army’s influence on policy making, this paper argues that it is the gradual worsening of China’s bargaining position vis-à-vis its Asian neighbors in territorial disputes that contributes to the rising assertiveness. The disadvantaged position is mainly due to a changing normative international security environment, which increasingly recognizes the legal principles of “uti possidetis”, and tend to legitimize real control over disputed territories overtime. Against this normative background, any actions taken by China’s Asian neighbors to strengthen their control further reveal the discrepancy between China’s sovereignty claims and the unpleasant reality of lacking effective control over those claims as well as increase the costs of China’s reassurance policy in Asia. The changing normative environment makes Chinese leaders believe that time is not on China’s side, and that maintaining a low-key stance and doing nothing is to acquiesce to the control of other states, which may further embolden its Asian neighbors. Therefore Chinese leaders perceive that sending assertiveness signals periodically is necessary to strengthen the legitimacy of China’s claim, and that the costs of challenging the unpleasant status quo are lower at present than in the future.

Author

• Jing Tao, Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program