Asia's Cauldron

The subtitle is The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific and the author is Robert Kaplan (2014).

I first got introduced to the author through his prior work at Stratfor, and subsequently read one of his books last summer about Romania and Eastern Europe.  This book looks at the dynamics at play in the South China Sea region and why so many countries have contesting territorial claims over that body of water – the list of states includes China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Borneo, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia.

Depending on your perspective, any number of explanations could suffice.  For starters, there are some estimates which suggest that there are 130 billion barrels of oil to recover, which would put it behind only Saudi Arabia in terms of hydrocarbons.  If that were true, the necessity to import fuel from the Middle East, which requires travel through the Strait of Malacca, would be reduced.  Another view focuses strictly on business and trade – it is the meeting point of Southeast Asia and India, and having control over this sea would enhance any one of the mercantilist economies of the region.  One move past that, and thinking strictly in terms of the largest and most powerful country in the area, one might consider it to be China’s Caribbean.  Thus, in the same way that America felt that controlling the main maritime thoroughfare in its backyard was critically important, and thereby opened it up to become a global hegemon once it was secure, China feels the same way about the South China Sea.

The interesting wrinkle that Kaplan notes is that because all of these explanations speak to commerce, it does not garner the attention of humanists and the media.  And because it is about contested waters, the likelihood of war is further reduced.  Nevertheless, this contest lies at the heart of the fastest growing region in the world, and its evolution will have ramifications that should not be ignored.