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{"id":15884,"date":"2014-04-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=862"},"modified":"2014-04-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T00:00:00","slug":"the-sea-at-the-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/04\/the-sea-at-the-center\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sea at the Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Robert Kaplan argues in\u00a0Asia\u2019s Cauldron<\/a> that control of the South China Sea is going to be critical in the geopolitics of this century.<\/p>\n

According to Ian Morris\u2019s NYTBR <\/em>review, \u201cKaplan starts out from some basic economics. More than half of the world\u2019s annual merchant fleet tonnage (including four-fifths of all the oil burned in China) passes through the South China Sea. This commerce, Kaplan says, has turned that waterway into \u2018the throat of the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans \u2014 the mass of connective tissue where global sea routes coalesce,\u2019 investing its straits, shoals and islands with extraordinary strategic significance. At the heart of Kaplan\u2019s book is a striking analogy that aims to explain what this will mean in the 21st century: \u2018China\u2019s position vis-\u00e0-vis the South China Sea,\u2019 he suggests, \u2018is akin to America\u2019s position vis-\u00e0-vis the Caribbean Sea in the 19th and early 20th centuries.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Morris finds Kaplan\u2019s analogy between US control of the Panama Canal and China\u2019s control of the South China Sea compelling: \u201c\u2018It was domination of the Greater Caribbean Basin,\u2019 Kaplan concludes, \u2018that gave the United States effective control of the Western Hemisphere, which, in turn, allowed it to affect the balance of power in the Eastern Hemisphere.\u2019 In a rather similar way, he suggests, the South China Sea now links the trade of the Pacific and Indian Oceans; consequently, \u2018were China to ever replace the U.S. Navy as the dominant power in the South China Sea \u2014 or even reach parity with it \u2014 this would open up geostrategic possibilities for China comparable to what America achieved upon its dominance of the Caribbean.\u2019 Because of this, the South China Sea is \u2018on the way to becoming the most contested body of water in the world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaplan doesn\u2019t envision Chinese conquest of Southeast Sais, but something more akin to Findlandization: \u201cSoutheast Asia\u2019s governments \u2018will maintain nominal independence but in the end abide by foreign policy rules set by Beijing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"