Bonnie S. Glaser and Gregory Poling
The United States faces a conundrum in the South China Sea: China is radically changing the status quo in the sea in its favor. But since 2016, the Southeast Asian states whose legal rights are being trampled have been reluctant to push back firmly against Beijing.
The United States and like-minded countries cannot alter China’s behavior at sea without the active participation of these regional claimants. Yet in much of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, elites and the broader public judge Washington’s commitment to the region based in part on whether it defends their maritime rights.
U.S. President Joe Biden and his team have largely continued the Trump administration’s policies in the South China Sea. The current U.S. administration has endorsed the Trump-era position that all Chinese maritime claims inconsistent with the 2016 ruling by a special arbitration tribunal are illegal. Furthermore, the Biden administration has affirmed that its treaty obligations require the United States to respond in the case of an attack on Philippine forces in the South China Sea and has continued the accelerated pace of U.S. naval operations in the region that was set under President Donald Trump.
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