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A Strategic Premium for China

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Posted: May 6th, 2016

By Euan Graham

Dr. Euan Graham is director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney and has been a long-time observer of Asian maritime and naval affairs. He worked previously for the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

China’s President Xi Jinping has committed himself to the country’s development as a maritime power and to protecting its sovereignty. One can reasonably assume that China’s long-term objective in the South China Sea is the establishment of strategic pre-eminence. That ambition probably extends within the entirety of the so-called ‘”first island chain,” which includes the Taiwan Strait as well as the East China Sea, where a parallel set of maritime tensions with Japan simmer and sometimes threaten to boil over.

But the South China Sea commands a strategic premium as the largest and deepest body of water among China’s “near seas.”

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