South China Sea Strategy

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China’s strategy in building artificial islands in the South China Sea and solution for Vietnam

1. Introduction
The South China Sea is a marginal sea, a part of the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by Vietnam, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. Its total area is about 1.4 million square miles, stretches from Singapore and the Strait of Malacca in the south west to the Strait of Taiwan in the northeast . The South China Sea has strategic values in terms economics, geo-politics, and defense. There are various islands in the South China Sea, the large island chains are Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Pratas Islands and Scarborough Shoal. Many islands in the South China Sea are uninhabitant. This characteristic contributes …show more content…

China under Mao Zedong only paid much attention to building naval forces for the purpose of strengthening the defenses of the mainland, because they thought that their navy was weak and unable to reach to the Taiwan islands. The Deng Xiaoping’s government emphasized the sea strategy in general and means of struggle relating to the sea. Deng Xiaoping's concept of sea consists of three basic elements: (i) Strategic thinking in marine defense is "close sea defense"; (ii) "Lean" and "useful" are the motto of navy developing; (iii) "Set aside sovereignty disputes, jointly exploit" is the policy to deal with issues of dispute at sea. The end of the Cold War changed international security environment and security thinking of most nations. China built a new concept of "Green Ocean Strategy" that has been adapted through the periods of Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and now Xi Jinping to suit China's international and domestic situation in each period. China's defense white paper in 2010 reads: "The development of national interests has set new requirements higher for capacity building at sea. Sticking to the battlefield, finding the way to victory, quickly transforming the combat capability model, carrying out training from near sea to remote sea, became the central task of naval units." In particular, building a maritime power is a completely new sea strategy in Chinese history. President Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of building a maritime power to promote healthy economic development, protect the sovereignty, security and development interests, and contribute to the achievement of the

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