The South China Sea Disputes: Past, Present, and Future.

• Author: Holmes, James R.
• Position: Book review

The South China Sea Disputes: Past, Present, and Future. By Nalanda Roy. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2016. Hardcover: 161pp.

Nalanda Roy, a political science professor at Armstrong State University in Savannah, Georgia, has compiled a compact volume chronicling the maritime quarrels convulsing the South China Sea. Indeed, Roy packs so much information into so few pages that her account has an almost jittery feel to it. Her method of presenting the material makes an impression on readers, or on this one at any rate. It is unsettling. She touches on some episodes such as China's occupation and fortification of Mischief Reef, furnishing only the barest of details. She then moves on to the next episode, then the next and the next. Veering back and forth in this manner reveals much about the political and strategic setting in Southeast Asia.

More precisely, Roy's approach conveys several impressions. First of all, Southeast Asia is a busy place. This will come as no secret to inhabitants of the region, but events at home and elsewhere in the world commonly obscure the importance of the South China Sea for Western readers. Barring some drama--revelations about China's constructing and arming artificial islands, or Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's latest antics, or another US Navy freedom-of-navigation cruise--the region tends to fade from view. It then bursts into the popular mind anew when the next newsworthy event transpires. Roy applies a damper to this cycle, helping observers avoid overreacting--or underreacting--to recent events.

Second, wrangling over islands, atolls and reefs and the adjacent seas and skies is nothing new for Southeast Asian contenders. As Alastair Iain Johnston pointed out in International Security some years ago, depicting China's behaviour over the past decade or thereabouts as "new assertiveness"--a common phrase deployed for encounters such as those at Scarborough Shoal or Fiery Cross Reef--overstates the magnitude of China's departure from past practice. For many years Beijing has acted at opportune moments to advance its maritime claims. Its navy and maritime militia fought the South Vietnamese Navy in the Paracels in 1974, for instance. It timed the battle well: the Saigon regime was nearing destruction at North Vietnamese hands, while a war-fatigued United States had no appetite for new Southeast Asian ventures. Roy thus situates recent clashes as part of a longstanding pattern.

Third, China is the...