A setback for China : the Scarborough Shoal incident on 11 August 2025. A China Coast Guard vessel and a People's Liberation Army Navy warship collided while pursuing a Philippine Coast Guard patrol vessel. The incident, which was captured on video and released by the Philippine government, has triggered renewed tensions in the ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Photo © Philippine Coast Guard.

Part Two. American sea power. A case study: the South China Sea.

December 5

Why does China occupy reefs and islands in the South China Sea? And how does the US react ?

The maritimes flows (here in red) are extremely important. They represent more than one third of the world's oil flows, near 90% of China's and Japan's oil imports.

NEW SUBJECTS :

3. The geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea. Cartoon by Satish Acharya (India) published in 2016, when The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague said that there was no evidence that China had ever exercised exclusive control historically over the South China Sea. “China says U.S. not qualified to make irresponsible remarks on South China Sea issue”. Article published by The People’s Daily on 10 August 2021.
4. China's ambitions in the South China Sea: An excerpt from Graham Allison's Destined for war (aka Thucydides' trap) and a cartoon by Chapatte featuring China's new Great Wall in the SCS.

Chinese street propaganda, Weifang, 2016: “The Southern Sea, our magnificent blue territory. We won't never give up a single inch of Chinese territory!” .

❑ Beginning in 1945, China has claimed historical rights on most of the SCS.

❑ In 2009, those claims were repeated, in a new context : China has become a significant sea power. The People’s Republic has produced maps of the SCS, featuring a nine-dash line, that includes most of the sea.

❑ Based on those claims, China has started to occupy the islands of the SCS, to fortify them, and to deny access to other countries. E.g : Scarborough Shoal, 160 nautical miles from the Philippines, also claimed by Vietnam.

❑ China has annexed the main groups of islands : the Paracels in the North (now called Xisha by China) and the Spratlys in the South (now called Nansha).

❑ To prevent China from controlling the whole area, western countries and Chinas’s neighbours have developed the Indo-Pacific doctrine (US State Department).

December 12, 2025

⇔ We can argue that China now has the upper hand in the SCS : it is close to their mainland territory, they occupy the area permanently (contrary to the US), and the Chinese navy becomes more capable every day. The US naval supremacy is being challenged, which had never happened during the Cold War.