Publication

Rebecca Strating writes that the disputes in the South China Sea concern overlapping claims to territory and maritime jurisdiction, strategic control over maritime resources, and differences in legal interpretations of freedom of navigation. In this report, Strating examines the responses of non-claimant regional states—India, Australia, South Korea, and Japan—to the disputes. In doing so, she highlights the extent to which such “like-minded states” are actually “like-minded” on the existing maritime order as well as what this tells us about the balance-of-power dynamics between China and the US.