The Obama administration’s South China Sea policy has been informed by both increasing concern about China’s assertive actions in the South China Sea as well as a reluctance to let the issue disrupt U.S.-China cooperation on other fronts, drown out the voices of regional states, or dominate U.S. Asia strategy. Following from that, the administration’s approach has rested on three pillars: a political pillar, which seeks to encourage claimant states to defuse tensions among themselves; a diplomatic pillar, where Washington tries to knit together a group of concerned global actors to stand up for the rules-based international order and against Chinese assertiveness: and a military pillar in which the United States seeks to build the capacity of Southeast Asian states as well as undertake its own efforts to resist Chinese aggression. Read more
