South China Sea Disputes And The Us-china Contest, The: International Law And Geopolitics. James Chieh Hsiung

Taylor, “The Rights Stuff in Oil Islands Row,” The Lawyer, October 15, 2012.

      ²⁷Paul Denlinger, “Will China Do Something to Defend Their Position about the South China Sea?,” Quora, July 19, 2016, http://www.linkedin/pauldenlinger.

      ²⁸One example is, in an otherwise sensible essay on Trump’s approach to China, a respectable Sinologist succumbed to the influence of these repeated questionable charges, when she began by noting: “In recent years, China … has defied international law and risked violent clashes in East and South China Seas” (emphasis added). Susan Shirk, “Trump and China,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 96, no. 2 (March/April 2017): 20.

      ²⁹I have dealt with China’s first rise, during 713–1820, when it had the world’s largest GDP, based on data meticulously kept by English economic historian Angus Maddison; and its current ascent is its second rise. Hsiung, China into Its Second Rise (Singapore: World Scientific, 2012).

      ³⁰Consider: (a) “Chinese Ship Shadows U.S. Carrier,” CNN News, June 15, 2016 and (b) “U.S. Carrier Starts to Patrol the South China Sea,” CNN News, February 20, 2017.

      ³¹Robert D. Kaplan, Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific (New York: Random House, 2015), p. 14.

      ³²“U.S. Carrier Starts to Patrol the South China Sea,” CNN News, February 20, 2017.

      ³³See “The Hainan Incident,” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

      ³⁴A similar case involving the interception of a U.S. spy plane by Chinese jets took place in June 2016, but that was in the East China Sea. Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2016.

      ³⁵Though it has not ratified the UNCLOS, the United States has declared that it is, nevertheless, committed to observe its provisions.

      ³⁶CNN News, December 18, 2016.

      ³⁷I discussed Zheng’s seafaring missions in my China into Its Second Rise, and see note 29, p. 52. See also Edward Dreyer, Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405–1433 (New York: Pearson/Longman, 2007).

      ³⁸For parsimony’s sake I shall not give more details than this much, so as not to preempt discussions in Chapter 2. Readers who can read Chinese may consult my article “Nanhai zhi zheng: guojifa yu zhongguo ruhe huwei ziji quanyi [The Disputes over the South China Sea: International Law and How China Can Defend Its Own Rights],” Zhongguo pinglun (China Review) (Hong Kong), February 2016 issue, pp. 43–45.