After meeting briefly on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged the need for improved ties. Despite the diplomatic gesture, though, relations remain strained. Next year marks the 45th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, but celebrants of that auspicious occasion may unfortunately find little reason to cheer. The most immediate source of tension stems from a deepening confrontation in recent months over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which China claims as the [...]
With China’s aggressive posture in the South China Sea undermining the popular narrative of its peaceful rise, many experts correctly point to the dual tides of nationalism and militarization as drivers of hostile behavior. But leaning too heavily on these explanations conceals a third factor behind Beijing’s maritime claims: a burgeoning demand for energy. Already the world’s largest energy consumer, China will only need more in the coming years to maintain sustained urbanization and industrialization. As more people move into cities and China’s economic output rapidly expands, its energy consumption will increase by nearly 50 percent through 2035, accounting for [...]
Since an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in July that China’s claims to the South China Sea had no legal basis and thus violated the Philippines’ maritime rights, claimants to the waters have focused on lowering the temperature on the ongoing disputes. Though this is a welcome respite from years of tensions and has yielded some progress, formidable challenges remain in translating these gains into sustainable solutions for the complex disagreements between China and five other claimant countries—Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Before the tribunal’s verdict, many observers had worried that a lopsided legal outcome for either [...]
