Abstract

The vast South China Sea has become one of the world’s most dangerous hotspots. Through words and deeds, six claimants including China contend for control over numerous small land features and resource-rich waters, with the United States also heavily involved because of alliances and our own security and economic interests. The great geopolitical question of our age, whether the United States as the established dominant superpower can co-exist with a re-emerging powerful China, sits on the sea’s horizon like a huge and taunting Cheshire Cat.