Abstract
This chapter examines public commentaries from Chinese foreign policy experts on the South China Sea issue and China’s relationships with some of the other dispute parties and extra-regional actors. It aims to establish systematic differences in how two specific actors—Vietnam and the Philippines—are being portrayed, if and how expert assessments differ from the official position, and what policy suggestions are being made.
To explore these questions, I combine an in-depth study of a number of commentaries relating to highly publicized events like the standoffs over HS 981 and Scarborough Shoal with a quantitative content and sentiment analysis of a sample of over 1500 pieces written by Chinese experts since 2010. Based on the findings, I argue that despite the Chinese insistence on describing the South China Sea as a regional issue, Chinese experts view it as an area of strategic contention with the United States, and perceptions of local actors are strongly shaped by their alignment with the US. Furthermore, while Chinese experts unanimously stand behind their nation’s territorial claims in the area, they have also emerged as a voice favoring moderation and de-escalation, and thus act as a possible counterweight to elite and grassroots demands for an even more assertive foreign policy. Finally, by tracking the diversity of views apparent in these debates, we can glean some insights into how China debates its future course on this issue, as well as the degree to which related policies have been settled or are still in flux.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
See Abb (2015).
- 4.
This methodology is mostly an adaptation of Daniela Stockmann’s work on the framing of the US in Chinese media, see Stockmann (2011).
- 5.
Apart from China itself, the five most frequently mentioned actors are the US with 14,137 occurrences, Japan with 7393, ASEAN (2689), India (2317) and Russia (2047).
- 6.
According to the Pew Research Center’s 2014 Global Attitudes Survey, a mere 8 % of Chinese respondents had a favorable view of Japan. Such views are not only constrained to the general populace, but also prevalent among the IR expert community, who have in recent years focused on worries about a resurgent Japanese militarism (see King 2014).
- 7.
de Castro (2009).
- 8.
Panda (2014).
- 9.
Traiano (2013).
- 10.
Truong-Minh and Trung (2014).
- 11.
- 12.
Thayer (2014a).
- 13.
Thayer (2011).
- 14.
See Weiss (2014).
- 15.
de Castro (2013).
- 16.
- 17.
Su (2012).
- 18.
Zhang (2012).
- 19.
Chen (2012b).
- 20.
- 21.
Teng (2012a).
- 22.
- 23.
Chen (2012b).
- 24.
Teng (2012b).
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
Su (2012), Ren (2014).
- 28.
Teng (2012b).
- 29.
Teng (2012a).
- 30.
- 31.
Chen (2012b).
- 32.
- 33.
Glaser and Medeiros (2007).
- 34.
Roy (1996).
- 35.
Thayer (2008).
- 36.
Glaser and Medeiros (2007).
- 37.
“Xi Jinping chanming zhongguo heping fazhan yuanze dixian”, Xinhua, January 30, 2013, online: <http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-01/30/c_114560069.htm> (accessed January 5th 2015).
- 38.
Fravel (2011).
- 39.
Wong (2014).
- 40.
- 41.
Jia (2014).
- 42.
BBC Monitoring (2014).
- 43.
Wu (2015).
- 44.
Jia (2014).
- 45.
Cai (2014).
- 46.
Wu (2015).
- 47.
Zhou (2015).
- 48.
Qun (2015).
- 49.
Chen (2014).
- 50.
Chun (2015).
- 51.
See Chubb (2014).
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Abb, P. (2016). Punish the Philippines, Forgive Vietnam? The South China Sea Disputes in the Eyes of Chinese Experts. In: Fels, E., Vu, TM. (eds) Power Politics in Asia’s Contested Waters. Global Power Shift. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26152-2_7
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