Theories of Chinese Assertiveness in the South China Sea

Abstract

Based on the power analysis conducted in the previous two chapters, it will be argued here that the main hypothesis does not fully explain the Chinese assertiveness. Moreover, it is shown that although China’s perception of its power (in a twist of the main hypothesis) increased somewhat immediately in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, the increased perception was not very significant, and it seemed to decrease shortly afterwards. Hence, alternative theories need to be proposed to explain the Chinese behaviour. Subsequently, it is claimed that four out of the five assertive events can be explained as Chinese reactions to other actors’ actions, as the alternative hypothesis 1 claims. With the exception of the oil rig incident, all of the four remaining assertive cases included a direct trigger which, from China’s perspective, was the action of another actor. Furthermore, the changes in the regional international system, particularly those connected to the initiation of the US pivot policy, likely contributed indirectly to the Chinese assertive actions. Even though the combination of the two hypotheses sufficiently explains all five instances of the assertive Chinese behaviour in the SCS, the validity of the remaining theory was also discussed. The alternative hypothesis 2 is the most complex of the alternative hypotheses, and it required discussing three separate options of how domestic politics could have influenced Chinese foreign policy towards being assertive. Two of them—the fragmentation of the leadership and domestic instability—were found not to be present in a relevant way. While the third indicator’s assumption—the growing nationalism—is met, there are no marks that would indicate that the government would have been under pressure from the nationalistic public opinion and thus decided to adopt assertive policies. On the contrary, the accounts of the assertive actions of China give signs of pre-planned, restrained, and well-controlled behaviour.