Controlling the South China Sea - A Chinese Monroe Doctrine?

Seminar with James R. Holmes, associate Professor of strategy at the Naval War College, Senior Fellow at the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs.

Chair: Céline Pajon, Research Fellow, Center for Asian Studies, Ifri.

Chinese words and deeds vis-à-vis Southeast Asia bring Chinese attitudes into sharp focus. Officials have asserted ‘indisputable sovereignty" over most of the South China Sea. In 2010, the Chinese foreign minister pointedly told his Southeast Asian counterparts that ‘China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that"s just a fact." Such language is reminiscent of Richard Olney"s insistence that Washington was ‘practically sovereign" in the New World. Yet even Olney and Cleveland never dreamt of actually asserting title to the Caribbean basin, despite their overbearing diplomacy during the Venezuelan border crisis. If Beijing is pursuing a Monroe Doctrine by another name, it"s a hyper-Monrovian offshoot of the original. In rhetorical terms, China appears to be a regional strongman in the making.

The seminar will be held in English.