Security Dynamics in the South China Sea: Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities

This volume examines the South China Sea’s regional security dynamics, highlighting the challenges and opportunities for both littoral and non-littoral states.

The South China Sea is a vital pathway for the great container ships and tankers, as well as for the naval vessels of today. Indeed, the security of the contemporary global economy is reliant more than ever upon the dependability of freedom of navigation through the waters of the South China Sea. This volume concentrates on the security of the South China Sea sub-region. It is designed to help illuminate the contemporary security dynamics within this important sub-region by highlighting its development, the contemporary challenges and opportunities confronting both the littoral states and the non-littoral powers that are active in the sub-region, and the policy responses of those states as they seek to defend and promote their national interests. This book is composed of 16 chapters and is organized into five thematic sections. Part I of the book is designed to set the historical context. Part II examines some of the contemporary challenges and opportunities that present themselves in the sub-region, while Part III focuses on Chinese policy in the South China Sea sub-region. Parts IV and Part V analyse and evaluate the contemporary policies of the various littoral and non-littoral powers that are active in the South China Sea sub-region. The collective analyses and assessments of the contemporary perceptions and policies of the various littoral and non-littoral powers active in the South China Sea in response to the traditional and non-traditional challenges within the sub-region that are examined in the chapters contained in Parts III, IV, and V, framed against the material presented in Parts I and II, provides the basis for observations concerning areas of conflicting and coinciding interests in the concluding chapter of the book.

This book will be of interest to students of the South China Sea, maritime security, Asian politics, and international relations.

Howard M. Hensel is the Henry H. Arnold Professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at the USAF Air War College, USA. His previously published books include: Maritime Security in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific (2018), Naval Powers in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific (2018), Air Power in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific (2020), and Security Dynamics in the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula (2023).