Nian Peng(2022): Nationalism in China’s South China Sea Policy: Delicate Trade-Off Between Sovereignty Protection and Stability Maintenance in Nian Peng&Chow Bing Negow (eds.), Populism, Nationalism and South China Sea Dispute: Chinese and Southeast Asian Perspectives (Singapore: Springer Nature, 2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1453-9_2

Abstract: This chapter examines the different roles of nationalism in the maritime standoff between China and the Philippines and Vietnam in the past decade and explores the main reasons behind China’s quite different tactics of manipulating the nationalism to legitimize and support its actions in the disputes waters of the SCS. It points out that the nature of the dispute (territorial integrity or maritime interests) and Chinese leaders’ trade-off between sovereignty protection and stability maintenance are the determining factors of China’s manipulation of nationalism in the SCS dispute. In order to verify this argument, it analyzes China’s use of nationalism in its three major standoff with the Philippines and Vietnam in the SCS in 2012, 2014 and 2019, respectively. It fifinally predicts that China’s response to the SCS dispute would continue to be inflfluenced by the rising nationalism amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, due to the high pressures on domestic development and the top priority of the stability maintenance in the SCS, China is more likely to restrain the nationalism in the SCS dispute. 

Keywords: China · Nationalism · South China Sea Dispute · The Philippines · Vietnam

RCAS Book Chapter 202301.pdf