Ben Bland
As a heavily laden, Danish-owned container ship leaves Singapore’s port and enters international waters, it pings China’s Zheng He vessel identification system,
providing an update on its cargo and intended route through the South China Sea to Shanghai. Despite long-standing fears about China’s threat to freedom of navigation,
Beijing still allows all commercial ships unrestricted access to these critical global trade routes, so long as they adopt Chinese monitoring technology. Foreign navies,
by contrast, are severely curtailed in these waters, with control maintained through China’s unrivalled navy and coast guard, plugged into a sprawling network of unmanned ships, drones, sensors, and satellites.
The year is 2035. And this vignette reflects a hypothetical scenario of Chinese dominance of the South China Sea that we recently presented to policymakers and maritime experts in Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom in a “back-casting” exercise.
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