A (critical) geopolitical analysis of the discourse of the People's Republic of China regarding the South China Sea dispute

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A (Critical) Geopolitical Analysis

of the Discourse of the People’s Republic

of China Regarding the South China Sea

Dispute

University of Amsterdam

BSc Human Geography & Urban & Regional Planning

Thesis Project Critical/Political/Cultural Geography

Tim De Boer – 11057424 – tim.s.deboer@gmail.com

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Abstract

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has undergone rapid development in

recent years. Part of its development strategy is expanding into the South China

Sea under a discourse where peaceful development prevails. The expansion into

the South China Sea causes a dispute with the other littoral states however, and

this study seeks to examine the PRC’s policies through both classical

geopolitical theory as well as critical geopolitical theory.

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Introduction

On 18 June 2018, Paul Maley published an opinion article in The Australian. The Defence and National Security editor argued that “Australia cannot make the same mistakes in the Pacific that it made in the South China Sea, where Beijing militarised the area quickly and without serious challenge” (Maley, 2018). To understand what Maley means, when he argues that Beijing militarised the South China Sea (SCS) without serious challenge, this thesis will develop an Analysis of what is known as the SCS dispute, which is commonly understood as one of most complex maritime disputes in the world. It will do so, through the perspective of Beijing and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is therefore studied.

The PRC is currently also in a stage of rapid transitions on multiple fronts and gained a lot of international attention when Xi Jinping’s (Xi), who is the country’s 10th_{president and}

officially assumed office on 14 March 2013, power was extended on 11 March 2018. On that day, nearly 3000 members of the PRC’s parliament voted almost unanimously in favour of a Constitutional amendment that abolished the presidential term limit, meaning that Xi does not have to step down when his second term ends in March 2023 (Buckley & Meyers, 2018; Buckley & Wu, 2018; Osborne, 2018).

Both Maley’s alarming statement and the abolishment of the presidential term limit trigger a tendency to speculate on the PRC’s future course. Instead of doing that, this thesis sets out an analysis to develop an understanding of why the PRC militarised the SCS in the light of one of the most complex maritime disputes of this moment. To develop that knowledge, which can in turn contribute to a better scholarly understanding of the events that reached the news recently, the PRC’s perspective on the SCS dispute is studied through both classical geopolitics and critical geopolitics. As both schools of geopolitics evolved from the fundaments of Political Geography itself, the Theoretical Framework will create an

understanding of both schools of thought to show how they developed and will be used in the Analysis. Moreover, it is argued that both schools are necessary when a comprehensive understanding of the SCS dispute is to be developed. Although critical geopolitics claims to be against classical geopolitics, it studies an issue here that is fundamentally linked to classical geopolitics (Haverluk et al., 2014).

Thus, the SCS dispute will be studied in this thesis and it will be done by first establishing a Theoretical Framework that introduces Political Geography itself and accordingly shows how that evolved into classical geopolitics, and gradually works towards an understanding of critical geopolitics. Having set out the theory, it is then time to describe the context. The case of the PRC will first be introduced, and the framework will do so by applying the classical geopolitical theory to the PRC’s policies after which the SCS dispute is introduced, as it gets embedded in the classical framework. After the Theoretical Framework is completed, the Methodology follows, and the method of the critical geopolitical analysis will take shape in this section. Doing so the following Research Question will be answered:

What was the discourse of the institutions from the PRC in the formal, practical and popular dimension on the case of the position of the PRC regarding the South China Sea dispute

during the period of Xi’s first term?

Finally, the Analysis conducts a study of the Research Question, and summarizes the findings briefly in the Conclusion, where a brief discussion and a further suggestion follows.

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Theoretical Framework

Critical Geopolitics as an Academic (sub)-Discipline

Political Geography

As the Analysis focuses on the discipline of critical geopolitics, its foundations must be considered first to develop an understanding of the theoretical implications of the Analysis. Storey (2009) traces the roots of critical geopolitics to the early works of Political Geography itself, and therefore Political Geography should be studied first. While a number of scholars identify Aristotle to be the first writer on the combination of political and geographical issues, the real rise of Political Geography stems from late nineteenth-century Germany (Jones et al., 2004; Murphy, 2015).

Friedrich Ratzel, who is sometimes referred to as the ‘Father of Political Geography’, wrote Politische Geografie, oder die Geographie der Staaten, des Verkehres und des Krieges in 1897 in which he developed a study of states (Jones et al., 2004; Lossau, 2009; Murphy, 2015; Ratzel, 1897; Storey, 2009). Ratzel elaborated on the works of Carl Ritter and more specifically on the contributions of Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste de Lamarcke

(Doevenspeck, 2009; Jones et al., 2004; Storey, 2009). Being Ratzel’s academic predecessor, Ritter developed a new scientific geography that contrasted with the former dominant

geographical method of describing and inventorying Earth’s processes and objects. Instead, Ritter aimed to understand the interdependencies between these and was supported in this vision by his contemporary and fellow geographer Alexander von Humboldt. Ritter distinguished himself from Humboldt by arguing that a place needs to be studied through different historical eras instead of different places at the same time (Doevenspeck, 2009). Thus, Ritter and Humboldt paved the path towards a new geographical approach.

Ratzel also expanded his study with concepts from the newly developing evolution theory. While the theory has become largely synonymous with Charles Darwin’s notion of natural selection as described in On the Origin of Species (1859), evolution theory is actually more complex and diverse (Winlow, 2009). With regard to Ratzel’s work, two strands of evolution theory are being considered. Firstly, Darwin’s own natural selection theory, which is mostly simply referred to as Darwinism, argues that the strongest of species survive and thereby pass on their favourable characteristics (Bowler, 2001; Winlow, 2009). Lamarcke argued however that this process occurs during the lifetime of an organism itself. While Lamarcke’s

arguments have been disproved by modern biology, both visions were popular in Ratzel’s era and spread across disciplines (Bowler, 2001). A notorious example is found in social

Darwinism and neo-Lamarckism. These schools developed in parallel to their biological variants and applied their insights to society. Doing this, scholars were able to explain processes in human society, and justify them (Winlow, 2009).

While both social evolutionary schools were utilized to legitimize and study social

inequalities such as racial hierarchies and class differences, Ratzel applied it to the sphere of politics and geography (Jones et al., 2004; Murphy, 2015). In his attempts to intellectually justify Germany’s territorial expansion, he compared the German state with an organism in search for survival. Like organisms, Ratzel argued that states are engaged in a process of (population) growth and will therefore inevitably reach a point where they need territorial expansion to maintain sustenance (Ernste & Philo, 2009; Jones et al., 2004; Murphy, 2015; Storey, 2009; Winlow, 2009).

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Thus, Ratzel’s version of the in German academia already existing organic state theory gave rise to the notorious concept of ‘Lebensraum’ (living space) (Holdar, 1992). From Ratzel’s perspective, each ‘living’ political entity in the world system competes for control over a part of Earth’s surface to eventually reach ‘Grossraum’ (large space) (Jones et al., 2004; Murphy, 2015; Winlow, 2009). While Ratzel mostly aimed at German colonial expansion in Africa, some of his nationalist followers and academic successors took a way more aggressive stance and focused on the development of Lebensraum in Continental Europe (Jones et al., 2004; Winlow, 2009). This expansion, which deals directly with other European political entities, paved the way for scholars of geopolitics to which the discussion will now turn.

The rise of Geopolitics

Rudolf Kjellén was the first academic to coin the term geopolitics in an article in 1899 (Fettweis, 2015; Holdar, 1992; Kjellen, 1899). While Sicker (2010) and Palacio (2013) argue that the earliest conceptual development of geopolitics should actually be ascribed to the German nationalist economist Friedrich List, this framework still departs from the popular insight that Kjellén first developed it. List did indeed contribute to the academic literature by studying how geography and foreign politics affect the development of states, but he was not the first to call that study geopolitics (Palacio, 2013; Sicker, 2010).

Like Ratzel, Kjellén compared states to organisms and studied their behaviour. The Swedish political scientist categorized its characters into: 1) Geopolitik; 2) Demopolitik; 3) Ekopolitik; 4) Sociopolitik and 5) Kratopolitik (Holdar, 1992, p. 311). For Kjellén, the word politik does not mean politics but rather theory of the state (Holdar, 1992; Kjellén, 1918). It follows that Geopolitik studies a state’s territory, Demopolitik its population, Ekopolitik its economy, Sociopolitik its society and Kratopolitik its institutional arrangements (Holdar, 1992). Kjelléns attributes of the state are useful to create an understanding of his definition of the state as a concept, but this analysis will focus on his notion of Geopolitik. Following Holdar’s (1992) interpretation of Kjellén’s original works, Kjellén regarded Geopolitik to be ‘the study of a geographical organism in space’. The territory of a state was therefore seen as the body of the organism. As Kjellén argued that all states finally strive to become geographical

individuals, it meant for Kjellén that Geopolitik ultimately is about the way in which states fill their bodies with an organic area of land (Holdar, 1992; Kjellén, 1916). To protect the

territory, Kjellén argued that natural boundaries such as seas, mountains, deserts and rivers were highly necessary for a state while the internal area between the boundaries needed rivers, lakes and seas to improve communication and transport within the state (Holdar, 1992). Kjellén’s views have therefore also been classified as deterministic (Marklund, 2015). While Ratzel and Kjellén were both interested in individual states as unit of analysis, another famous geographer highlighted the aspect of grand strategies in geopolitics (Jones et al., 2004). On 25 January 1904 Sir Halford Mackinder delivered his world-famous address to the Royal Geographical Society in London. In “The Geographical Pivot of History”, and his other works, Mackinder presented an argument opposite to the works of the American naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan (Murphy, 2015; Ó Tuathail, 1996). While Mahan and Mackinder both followed the deterministic geopolitical view of Kjellén, Mahan argued that states needed to concentrate on the control of the seas when they were striving for world domination (Dodds et al., 2013; Fettweis, 2015; Jones et al., 2004; Murphy, 2015).

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Sumida (1999) has provided a simplified overview of Mahan’s argument. Most importantly, Mahan argued that states needed to control sea-lanes since they facilitate maritime commerce which is essential to a state’s economy. To protect that trade, and undermine the enemy, Mahan argued that states needed to develop a capable and powerful navy with a fleet of battleships (Sharp, 2009; Sumida, 1999). While Sumida (1999) argues that Mahan’s works were in fact very advanced and underappreciated, his role in history was overshadowed by Mackinder’s works. In contrast to Mahan, Mackinder (1904) argued that world domination was to be achieved through the conquest of land. As the age of exploration finally came to an end after 400 years, Mackinder (1904) argued that the new fast land traveling technologies such as railways in the post-Columbian era would swing back power to continental states (Jones et al., 2004; Ó Tuathail, 1996).

Mackinder’s theory was applied to geography by his development of an ordered world map, which divided the world into three political regions. Firstly, Mackinder identified the ‘outer crescent’ which consisted of both the Americas, Africa, Oceania and the oceans. Secondly, an ‘inner crescent’ was identified which embodied Europe and southern Asia and finally, and most importantly, the ‘pivot area’ which is the central Eurasian landmass (Jones et al., 2004, p. 6; Mackinder, 1904). Following this division, Mackinder argued that the state which controlled the pivot area, would become a major world power, and so the Heartland Thesis was born (Dodds et al., 2013; Dodds & Woon, 2015; Jones et al., 2004; Knutsen, 2014; Murphy, 2015; Ó Tuathail, 1996; Reuber, 2009; Sempa, 2015; Storey, 2009). Figure 1 shows an edited edition of the map of the Heartland Thesis:

Figure 1: Map of the Heartland Thesis. The ‘Heartland’ is located in the centre of the Eurasian landmass, the map has been taken from a blog of Andrew Lynch (Lynch, 2017;

Mackinder, 1904).

Besides the generated knowledge from their academic studies, geopoliticians have also impacted actual politics. Mackinder promoted geography as aid to statecraft, and succeeded like his fellow academics to transform theories into policy and political ideology (Kearns, 2009; Ó Tuathail, 1996; Sharp, 2009; Teggart & Mackinder, 1919).

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Mackinder’s theory has for example been expanded on by Nicholas Spykman (1893-1943), who was a Dutch-American professor of International Relations at Yale University. Instead of focusing on the Eurasian Heartland, Spykman argued that the focus should be on the Rimland areas of Western-Europe and Southeast Asia (Ó Tuathail, 1996). To prevent any state from conquering the Heartland and hence achieve world domination, Spykman stressed the importance of the United States (U.S.) military intervention to keep the Rimlands away from the would-be imperialist power (Fettweis, 2015; Murphy, 2015; Ó Tuathail, 1996; Reuber, 2009). Figure 2 shows a visualisation of Spykman’s model:

Figure 2: Spykman’s ‘Rimland’ model. The Rimland is marked in red, and completely

surrounds the Heartland. The arrows symbolise the suggested direction of U.S. intervention, map taken from the blog of Andrew Lynch (Lynch, 2017; Spykman, 1942).

While it is rightly argued that Spykman’s and other geopolitical theories became unpopular after the Second World War (WW2), his argument ironically still became a reality during the Cold War (Knutsen, 2014; Reuber, 2009). To understand why geopolics faded after WW2, the discussion will now turn to the works of Karl Haushofer.

The fall of Classical Geopolitics

While Mackinder, Mahan and Spykman contributed to geopolitics from the Anglo-American perspective, Karl Haushofer developed a German school of geopolitics. Having obtained a Ph.D. in geography, geology and history at the University of Munich, Haushofer joined the German army in the First World War (WW1) and rose to rank of major general (Ó Tuathail, 1996). After his time in the army, Haushofer began his career in the academic world as a professor in geography at the University of Munich where he held his position from 1921 until 1939 (Ó Tuathail, 1996; Reuber, 2009). Professor Haushofer was a follower of Ratzel and Kjellén, and developed the latter’s concept of Geopolitik into a spatialisation of an approach to turn Germany into a great power again (Herwig, 2016; Ó Tuathail, 1996). Like Ratzel, Haushofer saw Germany as an organism and even referred to Mackinder’s works as ‘the greatest of all geographical worldviews’ (Knutsen, 2014). It follows that Haushofer’s position as professor and editor of the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, the German journal of geopolitics, made him an influential geopolitical academic (Reuber, 2009).

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Haushofer has become most known however for his notorious relationship with members of the German Nazi party. One of them was Rudolf Hess, who was Haushofer’s aide-de-camp during WW1 and went to study political geography at the University of Munich after the war. In 1922 Hess introduced Haushofer to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. After the failed

Bierkellerputsch in 1923, Hitler and Hess were imprisoned in the Landsberg prison and it was there were Haushofer visited them. Haushofer gave Hitler copies of the works of German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz and Ratzel and discussed geopolitics with them (Knutsen, 2014; Ó Tuathail, 1996). While Haushofer was sympathetic to many aims of the Nazi party, delivered speeches to Nazi meetings and got some of his arguments into Mein Kampf (1925) and Nazi ideology, he never was a Nazi himself (Knutsen, 2014; Ó Tuathail, 1996; Reuber, 2009). Rather, Haushofer appeared to have to gone along with Nazis to realise his theories and desires (Ó Tuathail, 1996).

Part of Haushofer’s realisation came through his role with regards to the establishment of the German Academy which was opened in May 1925. The official aim of the Academy was to “strengthen and bring together the unofficial cultural relations of Germany with areas and Germans abroad the homeland, in service of German-folk-consciousness” (Herwig, 2016; Ó Tuathail, 1996, p. 46). Haushofer first headed the Academy’s Practical Department and became its president in 1934 after the Nazi party came to power. In the five years leading up to WW2, the institute increasingly came under Nazi influence and started to serve their goals (Ó Tuathail, 1996). While the institute was a success for Haushofer, it became the inspiration of the widely circulated myth of the Geopolitical Institute. Fostered by sensational stories in the allied press, Haushofer and his Academy were described as the scientific brain behind Hitler. In the short Hollywood movie Plan for Destruction which was produced in 1943, Haushofer was depicted as the evil academic who headed an entire institute of hundreds of geopolitical scientists who were working on Nazi expansion (Ó Tuathail, 1996; Reuber, 2009).

While the myth persisted and framed (German) geopolitics as pure evil headed by professor Haushofer, reality was quite different. It is undeniable that Haushofer’s views affected Hitler and the Nazi party, but it never did to the claimed extents. In fact, Haushofer’s career came to an abrupt end in 1941 when he criticised Hitler for breaking the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (Knutsen, 2014; Ó Tuathail, 1996). Thus, geopolitics as forwarded by the classical scholars faded in popularity after WW2, and was replaced by new forms which dealt with the new order that was set in motion by the end of WW2 (Reuber, 2009).

Towards Critical Geopolitics

Two decades after Richard Hartshorne famously remarked in 1954 that “perhaps no other branch in geography has the attempt to teach others gone so far ahead of the pursuit of the teachers”, Muir (1976) found from a survey held with the heads of geography departments that political geography should increase in importance once again (Hartshorne, 1954 in: Jones et al., 2004, p. 8; Muir, 1976). To understand why Muir (1976) witnessed a shifting opinion in the political geographic and hence the geopolitical field, a couple of broader social and

academic trends need to be examined. Thus, the discussion will analyse how the paradigm in political geography, what Kuhn defines as the dominant scientific frame of reference, shifted to facilitate the gradual development of critical geopolitics (Couper, 2014; Kuhn, 1962).

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Firstly, the contributions of Hartshorne in the early 1950s brought political geography in a new era. Aware of a notorious past, he promoted the ‘functional approach’. To depoliticize political geography, Hartshorne argued the discipline should not focus on political strategies but rather on the analysis of states themselves (Hartshorne, 1950; Jones et al., 2004). This approach had severe consequences for the discipline however, as it became dominant during the 1950s and 1960s. It implied that scholars mainly conducted descriptive and empirical research and thereby missed out on the theoretical developments in the other branches of geography (Jones et al., 2004). Missing out on important new methodological events such as the ‘quantitative revolution’ in the late 1960s, the discipline became even more unpopular and started to disappear from the academic geographic landscape (Jones et al., 2004; Murphy, 2015).

Another issue which caused the rise of a counter movement, was the fact that early Cold War geopolitical scholars in the U.S., the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany did not question the broader social and political culture of the era (Ó Tuathail, 1996). Therefore, starting from the 1960s, a new wave of dissident academics started to question the established notions of (political) geography. Driven by the decolonization process of former European empires which started in the 1950s, the new wave of radical geographers no longer accepted the imperialist ideals of the founding fathers such as Ratzel, Ritter and Kjellén (Ó Tuathail, 1996). Thus, it can be argued that the end of the 1960s witnessed the beginning of a paradigm shift towards a more theoretical approach in (political) geography that challenged the existing functionalist paradigm (Castro, 2009; Jones et al., 2004; Storey, 2009).

Most notably, radical scholars in the U.S. and France contributed to a background which was dominated in the American context by the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the American urban crisis while the French were concerned with the enduring French presence in Algeria and the broader social cultural event of global protest in 1968 (Ó Tuathail, 1996; Storey, 2009). The Anglo-American group of scholars focused on Marxist theory which was taken from political economy and accordingly applied to geography. David Harvey’s work on urban systems, which he saw as being embedded in capitalism, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s contribution of the World Systems Theory which holds that the world economy should be regarded as one coherent capitalist system, can be seen as important contributions which were slowly but gradually taken over by political geographers (Harvey, 1973; Jones et al., 2004; Wallerstein, 1974; Woodward et al., 2009).

The contribution of the French academics was of greater importance for the development of critical political geography however. In 1969, the journal of Antipode was established in which radical geographers could voice their vision and where they contributed to the growing insight of space as social construct (Ó Tuathail, 1996). Especially Lacoste’s publication of La Géographie, ça sert d’abord, â faire la guerre in 1976, in which Lacoste argued that

geography as a discipline supported both a colonial order abroad, and a capitalist order at home, signed the beginning of a critical post-structuralist approach in geography itself (Lacoste, 1976; Murphy, 2015; Ó Tuathail, 1996).

Post-structuralism, which developed in parallel to radical geography in France, is the concept which refers to a loose cluster of philosophical theories that have been largely developed by scholars such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva and some notable others such as Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze and Jean-François Lyotard (Couper, 2014; Jones et al., 2004; Scruton, 2007; Woodward et al., 2009).

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Generally speaking, post-structuralists hold the view that an objective truth cannot exist, since they argue that the truth is being generated through power relations (Couper, 2014; Jones et al., 2004). Thus, post-structural philosophers contributed to the metaphysical study of ontology, which is being defined as the study of existence, through works which found that there is not necessarily a fixed reality but that there are rather multiple realities at the same time (Berg, 2009; Couper, 2014; Jones et al., 2004). To understand how these realities arise, post-structural epistemology, which is defined as the study of knowledge creation, focuses on relations between actors and holds that the strongest actor usually starts to own the truth (Couper, 2014; Jones et al., 2004).

Derrida and Foucault are of specific interest when considering the development of critical geopolitics since their methods form a fundament in the discipline (Dodds et al., 2013; Murphy, 2015; Ó Tuathail, 1996). Firstly, Derrida’s notion of deconstruction will be

examined. While Derrida himself did not want his work to be summarized and labelled under the methodological concept of deconstruction since it was quite complex in form, it has in contrast to his intentions become a verb for the critical dismantling of text (Barnett, 2009; Couper, 2014). Text is understood here as anything which can be ‘read’ and therefore

dismantled. Thus, not only literature is regarded as text, but works of art, videos, music, maps and political scenarios also constitute it (Butler, 2004; Couper, 2014; Jones et al., 2004). By dismantling these texts, Derrida’s method aims to analyse how claims to truth are made since he assumes that texts are different in how they signify and therefore describe reality (Barnett, 2009; Couper, 2014; Jones et al., 2004; Woodward et al., 2009).

In addition to Derrida, Foucault contributed to post-structuralism by insisting that knowledge and power cannot be separated from each other (Couper, 2014; Dodds et al., 2013; Sharp, 2009). Thus, Foucault holds the epistemological view that knowledge is being determined by the outcomes of a power play between various actors such as scientists, religions, political parties, the media and governments for example (Berg, 2009; Couper, 2014; Foucault, 1969,

1966; Jones et al., 2004). This process results in the development of the concept of discourse. Although discourse has been attributed various definitions, it can be argued in this

post-structural geographic case that discourse represents a set of underlying ideas and practices which give ‘text’ a particular kind of meaning and therefore constitute a framework through which reality is seen (Berg, 2009; Couper, 2014; Dodds & Atkinson, 2000; Gregory, 2009; Huxley, 2009; Jones et al., 2004; Reuber, 2009; Sharp, 2009). It follows that discourses can be constructed by multiple actors simultaneously, and that each produced discourse can be challenged and renegotiated through the earlier identified power relations. Following Antonio Gramsci’s contributions, who is famous for his work on the concept of hegemony, there is usually one discourse hegemonic in a society and discourse therefore results in a dominant worldview through which most members of a society view reality (Berg, 2009; Daldal, 2014; Dittmer, 2010). Human geographers have also contributed to Foucault’s work by adding that discourses are not only created through power, but also through historical practices and the geographical location of the actors, thereby turning discourse into a form of situated knowledge (Gregory, 2009). Thus, discourse creates a taken for granted reality where the actor places itself and others in (Gregory, 2009; Jones et al., 2004).

As discourse and deconstruction theory became increasingly influential, the Cultural Turn in human geography in the late 1980s, which saw culture as a product of discourse and led to the insight that post-structural theory influences the spatial dimensions of politics, finally led to the establishment of critical geopolitics (Jones et al., 2004; Murphy, 2015).

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Critical Geopolitics

While a body of relatively isolated literature on geopolitical representation emerged during the Cultural Turn in the 1980s, the official recognition of the rise of a new geographical discipline came from a set of publications which focused on the concept of geopolitics itself (Agnew, 2013; Dodds & Atkinson, 2000; Ó Tuathail, 1996). Initially, Gearóid Ó Tuathail and John Agnew wrote a paper in 1987 which was later published as ‘Geopolitics and discourse’ in 1992, in which they developed the theoretical foundations of the not yet labelled discipline of critical geopolitics (Agnew, 2013; Ó Tuathail, 1996). According to both, geopolitics should be seen as a form of storytelling, in which the protagonists tell about the world out there as a way of securing their interests over there (Agnew, 2013; Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992). Therefore, Foucault’s discourse was applied to geopolitics to illustrate how

‘intellectuals of statecraft’ spatialize international politics to represent a world which is filled with ‘places, peoples and dramas’ (Agnew, 2013; Ó Tuathail, 1996; Ó Tuathail and Agnew, 1992). Thus, according to the early analysis, actors in the field of geopolitics produce a representation of reality, and the process of producing that reality should therefore be studied (Agnew, 2013). As Agnew (2013) illustrates how various pioneering scholars such as Ó Tuathail and himself went different theoretical paths afterwards, this framework will develop an ecletic version of the concept of critical geopolitics that was first ever coined in Ó

Tuathail’s dissertation at Syracuse University (Agnew, 2013; Ó Tuathail, 1989). Conceptualisation and Perspectives

As critical geopolitics examines the process behind the development of representations of reality, the concept can theoretically be further understood when speech act theory and

materialism are considered (Sharp, 2009). Having been developed by J.L. Austin in a series of lectures at Harvard University in 1955, speech act theory holds in its broadest sense that language is being used as an action in the material world (Austin, 1962; Emery, 2011; Oishi and Fetzer, 2016). Thus, very generally argued, language is regarded as a tool which refers to actions that take place in the real world.

Like speech act theory does with language, materialism constitutes a philosophical strand of critical geopolitics which is gaining increasing attention since the materialist turn of the late 1990s and holds very generally that the ‘material’ world has agency in the ‘social’ world (Couper, 2014; Jazeel, 2014; Sharp, 2009; Squire, 2015; Wegge & Keil, 2018). Therefore, materialism often refers to a more-than-human approach which argues that human activities in the social world intra-act with the physical and therefore material environment (Squire, 2015; Wegge & Keil, 2018). Without entering a deeper discussion on materialism, this framework combines speech act theory with materialism and uses the notions of discourse and deconstruction to form the ontological and epistemological foundation of the Analysis. In doing so, the Analysis builds on a theoretical background that lends concepts from multiple scholars and continues like in the case of Simon Dalby’s work, with combining them via a specific filter (Agnew, 2013). In epistemological terms, the framework holds that reality is being formed by discourses which are in turn influenced by material and do so through language, meaning that this process which leads to the ontology of reality can be studied through deconstruction of discourse in texts. To crystallize the definition, the discussion will now turn to three common perspectives of critical geopolitics.

During their initial conceptualisation of the discipline, Ó Tuathail and Agnew (1992)

established the perspectives of practical geopolitics and formal geopolitics. Firstly, practical geopolitics is understood as the perspective of everyday statecraft. Thus, the practical perspective focuses on the direct practitioners of foreign policy such as politicians,

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statespersons and military personnel as these actors underpin their narrative with terms as danger, threat and safety (Dodds & Atkinson, 2000, p. 10; Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992). Secondly, formal geopolitics contrasts the practical perspective since this is being practiced by security intellectuals like strategic thinkers and classical geopolitical scholars who publish their work in civil society and thereby produce theories and strategies which justify practical geopolitics (Dodds & Atkinson, 2000; Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992).

Thus, practical and formal geopolitics support each other but also differ in style. While practical geopoliticians utilize a common-sense narrative, which relies on binaries such as good and bad, formal geopoliticians rely on a highly formalized jargon instead (Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992, p. 194). In addition to the conceptualisation, both scholars theorized that most geopolitical reasoning is of practical type but Ó Tuathail (2002) signalled ten years later that “there are very few detailed studies of practical geopolitics” (Ó Tuathail, 2002; Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992). Instead, the third perspective of popular geopolitics, which was effectively developed by Joanne Sharp in her research on Reader’s Digest, became more influential (Agnew, 2013; Sharp, 2000, 1993). Thus, popular geopolitics can be understood as the realm of critical geopolitics which deals with the production of realities through popular culture instead of political elites (Dodds & Atkinson, 2000; Ó Tuathail & Dalby, 1998; Sharp, 2009). As Sharp argues that there is no trickle-down effect between elite representations and popular representations but rather an interplay between them where the elite is influenced by popular texts to assert and justify its authority, many studies started studying popular texts (Mueller, 2013; Ó Tuathail, 2002; Sharp, 2009, 2000, 1993). Therefore, newspapers, magazines, cartoons, films, evangelical texts, comic books, maps and images have all become popular geopolitical units of analysis (Dittmer, 2007; Mueller, 2013).

Criticism It has now been identified what critical geopolitics aims to study and what the dominant perspectives of the discipline are. However, it would be erroneous to assume that the

established conceptualisation of critical geopolitics provides a definitive contribution. Sharp once argued that “the work of critical geopolitics is never done”, since the discipline is intrinsically critical in nature, her argument holds that any representation of reality can always be closely examined to find the interests behind it (Sharp, 2009, p. 361). Agnew (2013) argues however that while this is indeed the case, the discipline’s methodology should be critically examined as well. As he makes the case that the discipline has always been open-ended, it is justifiable to critically consider the critique on critical geopolitics in order to establish a sound understanding of its implications on the Analysis (Agnew, 2013, p. 36).

The discipline has received critique from scholars who argue that critical geopolitics is obsessed with countering classical geopolitics and thereby implicitly copies the focus its classical variant has (Agnew, 2013). Thus, not only does critical geopolitics mirror itself with old school geopolitics and thereby prevents the development of a more open-ended analytic direction, it ironically also reproduces the often Western lens of classical geopolitics in which the U.S. or the West play the central or imperial role (Agnew, 2013; Kelly, 2006; Sharp, 2011a, 2013). Agnew (2013) illustrates for example how the critical tendency to support the anti-imperial leads to unclear situations as to what is right or wrong and gives the example of the support for dictatorial regimes who claim to be against the dominance of global

imperialism, but actively oppress their own population.

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Therefore, critical geopolitics is regarded as being normative when looking at world politics and does so through the Western and anti-imperial lens (Agnew, 2013; Sharp, 2011a). While critical geopolitics has widely studied this approach, scholars of subaltern geopolitics argue that its methodology does not allow for developing a sound understanding of how

marginalised groups represent their reality (Ayoob, 2002; McEwan, 2009; Sharp, 2011a, 2011b). A special point of subaltern concern is the (critical) geopolitical foundation in realist international relations theory. This school of international relations holds that the state has the only genuine form of agency in world politics, and Kenneth Waltz once polemically expanded this argument by arguing that small powers like Denmark do not matter (Ayoob, 2002; Bilgin, 2008; Glassman, 2009; Sharp, 2011b, 2009; Stein, 2001). While taking the subaltern critique of Sharp and Ayoob into consideration, the Analysis will unavoidably apply a realist lens that studies the PRC, a power that matters.

Towards the Context: the PRC and the SCS Dispute

The PRC: The ‘new’ Hegemonic State?

There exists an extensive debate in the academic literature regarding the issue of the

development of the next hegemonic power in the world system (Karatasli & Kumral, 2017). Hegemony is understood here in the Gramscian sense, meaning that a hegemonic state combines economic, financial, political and military superiority to temporarily dominate the world-system (Glassman, 2009; O’Loughlin, 2009; Terlouw, 2009). Therefore, many scholars now question the position of the U.S. as the present hegemonic state in the world-system, and are assessing the PRC’s ascendancy to the status (Cha, 2017; Karatasli & Kumral, 2017; Mingran, 2015; O’Loughlin, 2009). Karatasli & Kumral (2017) identify however that most studies on the PRC’s rise focus on the economic dimension and thereby ignore the (macro-)political dimension of hegemonic development. To understand the PRC’s relative position in the world and the East-Asian region in particular, the discussion will briefly consider the identified dimensions of hegemony and accordingly interpret the outcomes to understand China’s stance in the SCS dispute.

Economy and Finance

While the economic dimension received most attention from scholars in the past years and multiple studies point towards the broader importance of this dimension, the PRC’s economy must be studied first (Barth, 2014; Ross, 2018; Xiaotong & Keith, 2017). While many studies of the PRC’s rise depart from December 1978 when the country initiated economic reforms that marked the beginning of the post-Mao era, it must be argued that this rise should rather be understood as a re-emergence (Barth, 2014; Hobson, 2004; Nye, 1997, p. 67; Petras, 2012; Ross, 2018; Wang & Hu, 2007).

As Petras (2012) argues, who bases his article on the work of Hobson (2004), China (in its historical geographic and institutional form) was superior to the Western civilisation from roughly 1100 until the beginning of the Western and especially British conquest of the East- and Southeast Asian region in the 1800s. The author goes even further to state that most Western and neo-liberal Chinese economists and academics are wrong when they argue that China’s growth started in the 1980s. Instead, Petras (2012) stresses that China’s re-emergence began on 1 October 1949 when Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the PRC. From that point in history, the Communists took over and established agrarian reforms in the 1950s which empowered hundreds of millions of peasants and rural workers, and more importantly mobilized the PRC’s enormous human capital to build the infrastructure needed for a modern economy (Petras, 2012). The Great Leap Forward was not only a success however, as it

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caused a disastrous famine with persistent consequences for future generations (Kim et al., 2014; Wemheuer and Manning, 2011).

As Petras (2012) gives a valid critique on the dominant Western and neo-liberal narrative, it can hardly be denied that the PRC’s economic re-emergence skyrocketed since the beginning of the 1980s. Since that period, the PRC’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew at

approximately 10 percent per year, and it was only since 2011 that growth slowed down towards 7 percent per year (Bradsher, 2018; Ross, 2018; Wang & Hu, 2007). While the accuracy of these numbers is a reason for debate, the growth can still largely be ascribed to the success of the PRC’s export oriented economy (Bradsher, 2018). Export is however not the only growth model for the PRC, and the second hegemonic dimension of finance must therefore be examined too (Burdekin & Willett, 2015).

After having conducted a statistical analysis of the relative share of the financial sector in the PRC’s economic growth, Ljungwall & Gustavsson Tingval (2013) found that finance does not play a significant role. This finding does however not imply that the PRC is not playing an increasingly important role in the global financial network. Instead, the cities of Shanghai, Beijing and Honk Kong are identified as being mutually supportive in the development of the growing presence of the PRC in the global financial network (Burdekin & Willett, 2015; Lai, 2012; Ljungwall & Tingvall, 2013). The three cities are also identified as Global City

Regions, and can following this concept be regarded as metropolitan regions which play a command and control role in the global economy (Friedmann, 1986; Sassen, 1991; Scott et al., 2001). Global City Regions are annually ranked on their relative importance in the World System and it follows that in the 2017 ranking Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong respectively placed 15th_{, 13}th_{and 9}th_{(Takenaka et al., 2017).}

Domestic Politics

Being the second largest economic power after the U.S. nowadays, the PRC’s influence on the dimension of (foreign) politics is widely studied (Mingran, 2015). Before entering the international realm of politics however, the PRC in its current domestic political arrangement must be understood. Broadly defined, the PRC’s form of government can be labelled as new totalitarianism, in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the only party and its governance is embedded in a strong omnipresent institutional setting (Liu, 2018). It would therefore be erroneous to view the PRC and Xi in the light of typical strongmen politics. Although it might appear as if Xi is gaining more power by altering institutional

arrangements, it should rather be understood in a context where the CCP’s top leadership has reached a consensus to do so (Acharya, 2018; Buckley, 2018; Buckley and Meyers, 2018; Frantz et al., 2018; Geddes et al., 2018; Liu, 2018; Shirk, 2018). Thus, the policies of the PRC arise from a complex set of CCP led institutions instead of the sometimes popular held

strongman notion of some Western scholars (Acharya, 2018). Economics and Foreign Politics

As Xiaotong & Keith (2017) identify that the PRC’s leaders try to convert the national wealth into an international economic exercise of power in the PRC’s near- and far abroad, the PRC’s economic politics must be understood. This dimension of the PRC’s foreign politics is being characterized by a couple of trends and developments. The PRC’s aim can be broadly defined here as trying to establish a new configuration in world politics which seeks to “represent the interests of newly emerging economies and developing countries” but does so from within the existing system and in order of the PRC’s longstanding goal of establishing a multipolar World System where there is no single hegemonic state (Cha, 2017; Economy,

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2018; Mingran, 2015; Xiaotong & Keith, 2017). Thus, it is argued here that it is not in the PRC’s interest to fully overthrow the current economic world order which is led by the U.S. (Karatasli & Kumral, 2017).

Instead, the PRC promotes the Beijing Consensus. This development model differs from the neo-liberal Washington Consensus, a concept that was invented in 1989 by John Williamson (1937-present) and holds that democratic political reforms and market liberalization are a prerequisite for economic growth, by supporting a growth model which features “1) incremental reform; 2) innovation and experimentation; 3) export-led growth; 4) state capitalism and 5) authoritarianism” (Acharya, 2018; Guan, 2017, p. 127-128; Mingran, 2015; Williamson, 2012, 1990). Although academic views vary on the exact definition and

importance of the concept, it can still be argued that the PRC promotes an alternative

development model to the Washington Consensus and spreads its ideology through multiple foreign policy projects (Guan, 2017; Xiaotong and Keith, 2017).

Xi announced the perhaps most ambitious project during his speeches at the Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan on 7 September 2013, and the Indonesian Parliament on 2 October 2013. During the visits, Xi respectively coined the terms of Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and Maritime Silk Road (MSR) (Jacob, 2017; Tekdal, 2018). Both labels describe what has now been established as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which, in its broadest sense, aims to develop a regional PRC-based economic order (Holslag, 2017; Hu, 2017; Jacob, 2017; Le Thu, 2018; Ross, 2018; Tekdal, 2018; Xiaotong and Keith, 2017). While a lot of scholars focused their attention on the BRI in recent years, Blanchard (2018) argues that a substantial proportion of the commentaries are sensationalist. Moreover, academics tend to merge the land based SREB, and the naval MSR initiative. Thereby, they produce problematic contributions which are overly broad and fail to nuance the projects with regards to the specific countries who participate (see Figure 3) (Blanchard, 2018). Therefore, Branchard (2018) studies the MSRI specifically and makes the remark that its success in the South-East Asian maritime region will partly depend on the outcomes of the maritime and regional SCS dispute.

Figure 3: Map of the economic corridors the BRI is aiming to establish. The MSR is represented by the blue arrows and runs through sea lanes in South-East Asia towards South Africa and Europe via

the Suez Canal. The SREB runs through Central and South Asia towards Europe and the map also shows the PRC-Pakistan corridor in orange. If successful, the three BRI branches will connect over 60

countries to the PRC. The map was been taken from the Stockholm Environment Institute (Hallding, 2017; Hu, 2017).

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Military

Blanchard’s (2018) remark is in line with the work of Ross (2018) who argues that the PRC’s economic power politics is not fungible regarding the East-Asian security order. Although there exists an extensive academic debate on the meaning of fungibility, it is understood here as the capability of the PRC to turn its market power into a strategic tool which determines the decision making of smaller states (Art, 1996; Baldwin, 1979; Ross, 2018, p. 3). In other words, Ross (2018) argues that the PRC cannot become superior to the U.S. through the BRI via the economic dimension only. Therefore, Ross (2018) stresses that the military dimension will play a larger role when it comes to the establishment of a PRC led sphere of influence in the BRI region. The final hegemonic dimension will therefore be examined in this section. Robertson & Sin (2017) show how assessments of the PRC’s military capacity have shown some sharp discrepancies in the literature. While the practical geopolitician Robert Kaplan and the political scientist and Foreign Affairs editor John Mearsheimer developed disquieting analyses of the PRC’s military role regarding the East-Asian region and the SCS dispute, other scholars tended to be more restrained (Kaplan, 2014; Li, 2016; Mearsheimer, 2006; Robertson and Sin, 2017). Thus, with multiple scholars theorizing on the PRC’s military strength, the authors tried to establish a better understanding of the widely circulated notion that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) budget has rapidly expanded over the last two decades, and therefore conducted an analysis of government budgets (Kim, 2013, 2017; Liff, 2018; Robertson and Sin, 2017; Schreer, 2017; Thornton and Thornton, 2018). In doing so, the authors found that while there is indeed an increase of military budget, it should largely be ascribed to the PRC’s economic growth which causes wages to increase and makes

maintenance of military services more expensive. The outcomes must be interpreted with caution however, as the PRC’s government might understate reality (Robertson and Sin, 2017).

A similar concern is raised by scholars of the BRI. Tekdal (2018) does for example identify how scholars of the PRC’s military strategy noted that the PRC’s government stresses that the BRI, and especially the MSR, should not be regarded as tools which aim to achieve strategic geopolitical goals (Li, 2016; Tekdal, 2018; Zhao and Qi, 2016). However, despite the narrative in the speeches of the PRC’s leaders, it is argued that the MSR is intertwined with territorial claims in the SCS which feature as one of the core interests of the PRC (Tekdal, 2018; Wenjuan, 2018).

The PRC’s Geopolitical Challenge

To understand why territorial claims in the SCS are a core interest, the discussion turns to the work of Jonathan Holslag who conducted an analysis of ‘Beijing’s Map’. The map is another word for the strategic perception of the PRC’s surroundings in the East- and South-East Asian region. According to the author, the PRC perceives its map in three layers: the Heartland, the Frontier Land and the Belt of Uncertainty (Holslag, 2010, p. 19). The Heartland can be understood as the geographical region on the PRC’s eastern coast where about 90 percent of the population lives, 75 percent of production finds place and where the three Global City Regions are located. Holslag (2010) therefore argues that all governments since Mao Zedong have prioritized the maintenance of security and prosperity of this region. To do so, Beijing actively intervenes and controls the Frontier Land which surrounds the Heartland and is bordering many Asian countries and Russia.

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More important regarding this discussion however, is the maritime corridor east of the Heartland consisting of the SCS, the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea. These seas around the Heartland have historically been the transit zones of colonial powers and are therefore regarded with great caution as many Chinese still believe the Heartland is in danger (Holslag, 2010).

The Belt of Uncertainty is the final layer of Beijing’s Map. This geographical area is beyond the PRC’s direct control and consists of most neighbouring countries. The author identifies however that while this area is outside Beijing’s direct sphere of influence, it harbours plenty of economic opportunities such as natural resources and therefore makes it a key target for economic cooperation (Holslag, 2010, p. 21). Figure 4 provides an illustration of Beijing’s Map:

Figure 4: ‘Being’s Map’. The map illustrates the three security layers of the PRC and shows the presence of the naval fleets of its contenders such as Japan, the U.S. and India. Also, the map shows U.S. military bases in the region, the ‘corridors of peril’ which are understood which pose a threat to the Frontier Land and finally the strategic sea-straits in the region are identified (Holslag, 2010, p.

20).

Of continued relevance: Classical Geopolitical Theory

Having been produced in 2010, Beijing’s Map outlines notions which have actually been translated into later foreign PRC policy. The Belt of Uncertainty does for example constitute the area of the BRI as the BRI does indeed search for economic opportunity and increasing political control in the region (Chung, 2018; Humphreys, 2018). Moreover, scholars have identified similarities between the classical theories of Mackinder and the naval theories of Mahan and Spykman with regard to the BRI.

As the SREB project focuses on the Belt of Uncertainty and thereby simultaneously on Mackinder’s unit of analysis, it has been theorized that the PRC’s policies might

coincidentally lead to the hegemonic outcome of Mackinder’s theory (Harper, 2017). Harper (2017) is careful to note however that this is largely speculative and will depend on multiple factors including the naval dimension where the MSR comes in to play.

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To understand why this is the case, the classical naval theories must be considered. Firstly, the PRC’s Heartland is positioned in the geographical region of Spykman’s rimland. Therefore, the naval strategy of the U.S. regarding the PRC has been in line with Mahanian thinking as the U.S. developed a policy in the Cold War which aimed to contest the rimland through the establishment of military alliances with East Asian states, and the development of naval bases in the region (Schreer, 2017). Since the mid-1980s, when the Cold War was coming to an end, the U.S. has become more aggressive in this strategy by forwarding its defensive line towards the PRC’s notion of near and far seas (Schreer, 2017). Acknowledging the Mahanian strategy of its challenger, the PRC’s strategists developed the concepts of near and far seas. In the PRC’s discourse, near seas constitute the geographical regions of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the SCS, while the far seas extend from northern Japan to the northern

Mariana Islands and extend even southwards of Guam (Li, 2009; Schreer, 2017). Thus, as the near seas coincide with the Frontier Land, the PRC maintains a discourse of near seas active defence (Li, 2009).

It would be erroneous however to view the PRC’s interest in the far seas and the MSR development which coincides with the String of Pearls theory, that describes the PRC’s efforts to cement its influence in the Indian Ocean by increasing its naval capabilities, as classical Mahanian hegemonial thought (Connolly, 2017; Dixon, 2014; Li, 2009). While the American strategy is certainly comparable to Mahan, the PRC reacts to it and has no similar hegemonic objectives (Connolly, 2017; Ferdinand, 2016; Harper, 2017; Liff, 2018).

The SCS dispute

Figure 5 shows the geographical area that constitutes the SCS, and thereby shows the region which has a surface of 3.5 million square kilometres (Curtis, 2016):

Figure 5: The area of the SCS. The map was created using GIS technology and relies on data of the International Hydrographic Organization (De Hauwere, 2017).

The map also illustrates how the PRC, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan border the SCS. As all these countries pursue their own geopolitical strategy, and the SCS has been identified to be resource rich, by containing vast amounts of oil and natural gas, in addition to rich fishing grounds, the region is prone to territorial conflict (Curtis, 2016; Kao, 2015; Zhao, 2018).

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While there are at least eight separate territorial disputes in the SCS, the PRC’s claim of more than 80 percent of the surface is undoubtedly the largest and most consistent (Curtis, 2016; Guo et al., 2017). Already since at least 1914, Chinese mapmakers have created maps that identify the nine-dash line (NDL). The claim is historically based on evidence of Chinese activities undertaken since the 15th_{century, and include surveying expeditions, fishing, and}

naval patrols carried out by China at the time (Curtis, 2016; Hong, 2013). The geographical area of the claim expanded over the years and started to include 132 geographical features in the SCS which have become part of official government maps since 1947 (Chung, 2018; Curtis, 2016; Hong, 2013; Zhen, 2016). Figure 6 provides a map of the NDL:

Figure 6: Map of the nine-dash line, and the island groups within it. The map was taken from an article on the website of Radio Free Asia (Pu, 2015).

As the NDL coincides with the geopolitical aspirations of the other countries, the map in Figure 7 illustrates the other territorial claims:

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The Paracel- and Spratly Islands

By looking at both maps, it can be quickly seen that the Paracel- and especially the Spratly islands are heavily disputed. To understand the discourse of the PRC on the issues, the situation with both island groups must be considered. The Paracel island group, which is located 350 kilometres southeast of the coast of the Hainan province and consists of approximately 130 coral islands and reefs that have a total surface of about 8 square

kilometres spanning an approximate total area of 15,000 square kilometres has been occupied by the PRC’s military since January 1974 when it expelled the South-Vietnamese forces from the islands (Chung, 2018; Hong, 2013; N.N., 2018a, 2013a; Zhen, 2016). Thus, when the South-Vietnamese forces occupied a part of the Spratly islands in September 1973, the PRC reacted by gaining control over a vital island group in its Frontier Land as the U.S. Seventh Fleet refused to support the South-Vietnamese, while North-Vietnam supported the PRC (Chung, 2018; N.N., 2018a).

A more complex situation arises when the Spratly island group is considered. Being further away from Hainan’s southern coast on an approximate distance of around 950 kilometres, the estimated group of 100 islands, rocks and atolls with a combined land area of less than 5 square kilometres that stretch a sea area of 410,000 square kilometres, is occupied by multiple states (Mortensgaard, 2015; N.N., 2018b; Vuving, 2016). South-Vietnamese forces occupied a part of the island group in September 1973 but were not the first, as Taiwan and the

Philippines already occupied some islands in the region (Hunt, 2016; Vuving, 2016; Watson and Phillips, 2016). Malaysia followed the given example and also started an occupation campaign in the 1980s (Vuving, 2016). The PRC finally reacted to the activities within the NDL in March 1988, when the PRC’s navy clashed with the Vietnamese navy around the then still unoccupied Johson South Reefs (Vuving, 2016; Watson & Phillips, 2016; Zhao, 2018). After the military conflict, which caused at least 74 casualties on the Vietnamese side, the PRC established a physical presence on the Spratly islands for the first time by occupying six features it still controls during the time of writing (Vuving, 2016; Watson & Phillips, 2016). Figure 8 gives an overview of the situation:

Figure 8: Map providing an overview of the occupied territory regarding the Spratly island group. The PRC controls 7 areas, as it occupied the Mischief Reef in 1994. The map was taken from an

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After the events of 1994, where the PRC annexed the Mischief Reef in search of further territorial consolidation, tensions eased somewhat under the growing influence of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a regional actor (Curtis, 2016). As the member states of the multilateral organization felt increasingly threatened by the policies of the PRC, they pushed towards negotiations with the PRC. The process finally led to the signing of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in

November 2002, which implied that the ASEAN could work towards greater regional integration and stability in the face of a rising PRC, and allowed the PRC to guard against the increasing influence of the U.S. among the ASEAN member states (Curtis, 2016, p. 539; Watson and Phillips, 2016). The Declaration was not legally binding however, and has like the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking which were signed as follow-ups in 2003, not fully brought an end to the tensions because of a

fundamental underlying lack of trust among the parties (Curtis, 2016; Raine, 2013, p. 48). Thus, the tensions were relatively eased, but while the non-ASEAN member of Taiwan still gradually cemented its physical presence in the following years, the PRC’s discourse marked a quite radical shift in May 2009 (Watson & Phillips, 2016). On 7 May 2009, the PRC’s government sent a note verbale to the responsible maritime UN commission in which it reacted to the claims of Vietnam and Malaysia by providing a map with the NDL and the explanation that “China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and the adjacent waters, and envoys sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the relevant waters as well as the seabed and subsoil thereof (Chung, 2016, p. 58; Watson and Phillips, 2016; Wenjuan, 2018; Zhao, 2018). While this was the first time the PRC presented the NDL claim to the international public, it continued a strategy of deliberate ambiguity by using the terms of ‘adjacent waters’, ‘sovereign rights’ and “jurisdiction” (Beckman, 2016; Chung, 2016; Wang, 2015).

The ‘Xi Era’: From Arbitration to Artificial Islands

The strategy of using vague and non-defined concepts has persisted ever since. When the Philippines brought the PRC’s claim to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague on 22 January 2013, the PRC’s ambassador to Manila simply reiterated the ambiguous government discourse of the PRC to reject the case (Chung, 2016; N.N., 2018a). Two months after the Philippines started their case against the PRC, Xi came to power and it has been identified that his entry caused an increasing assertiveness in the territorial behaviour of the PRC towards the conflict (Connolly, 2017; Ferdinand, 2016; Liang, 2018; Liff, 2018; Tekdal, 2018; Thornton & Thornton, 2018).

Driven by the renewed objectives, the PRC militarized its occupied territory further by starting land reclamation projects since June 2013 (Barnes & Hu, 2016; Connolly, 2017). By creating artificial land and military bases on the new islands in the occupied territories, the PRC and the other states try to not only to improve their military capabilities but also the legitimacy of their claims in the juridical sense (Barnes & Hu, 2016; Chang, 2014; Helman, 2015; N.N., 2015; Tiezzi, 2014; Watson & Phillips, 2016). Figure 9 shows the locations of reclamation works in the SCS:

Figure 9: Map of the reclamation works in the SCS. Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef and Mischief Reef are the PRC’s ‘Big Three’.

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While the reclamation activities continued in the years following 2013, the process at PCA also progressed. Three years later, on 12 July 2016, the PCA rejected the PRC’s NDL claim by declaring it unlawful and the 497 page ruling also stated that none of the island features are qualified to be entitled territorial and economic rights even though states try reclamation to make the island features fit with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to legitimate their claims (Chun, 2017; Lee, 2017; N.N., 2018c; Thornton & Thornton, 2018; Watson & Phillips, 2016). While the Court’s ruling against the PRC can be considered ground-breaking in the realm of international law and a success for the American Freedom of Navigation policy to patrol the SCS, it was a Pyrrhic victory in reality (Lee, 2017; Wenjuan, 2018). The PRC does not accept the PCA’s decision, and stresses that the dispute should rather be solved through individual negotiation among the countries that are involved in the dispute (Chun, 2017; Lee, 2017). Moreover, Wenjuan (2018) argues that the

Philippines used international law as tool rather than principle. Being pragmatic, and dependent on the PRC’s development projects, President Rodrigo Duterte remarked for instance that the SCS arbitration would ‘take the back seat’ during his next visit to Beijing (Lim, 2016; N.N., 2018c; Wenjuan, 2018). In fact, Peter Hartcher argued in an opinion article in the Sydney Morning Herald of 4 June 2018 that the countries who actually lose their claimed territories to the PRC were very diplomatic towards the PRC at the 2018 edition of the annual Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore, and thereby carefully tiptoed around the subject (Hartcher, 2018).

Thus, while the final years of Xi’s first term have come to an end, observers identify that the PRC has solidified its position even further. After ignoring the 2016 ruling, Beijing increased its military capacity on the Spratlys by turning the reclaimed islands into the most well-developed features of the region. Especially the Big Three features of Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef and Mischief Reef are the best developed, and have led military analysts to argue that the PRC will “prevail in any situation other than an all-out war with the U.S.” (Farley, 2018; N.N., 2018c). Farley (2018) puts it in other words and argues that the U.S. is left in a

conundrum. As the PRC can virtually expand at its own will, the U.S. must be very careful in deciding which values it wants to defend and which it should compromise in the realm of its future policy regarding the SCS dispute (Farley, 2018).

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Methodology

Introduction

Having understood the PRC’s role and position in the SCS dispute through classical

geopolitics, it is time to turn towards the study of critical geopolitics. This section discusses the methods which are used to conduct the Analysis and will also discuss the limitations of the proposed methodology. Before entering the discussion however, the Research Question and its three sub-questions are introduced.

Research Question

As the Theoretical Framework identifies the key tenets of critical geopolitics, it can be argued that it can be mainly studied through the formal, practical and popular dimension. Therefore, the Analysis will contribute to critical geopolitics by conducting a discourse analysis of the PRC’s discourse on the SCS dispute through the three main dimensions of critical geopolitics. Combining this method with the notion that the PRC’s policy has become more assertive under Xi it leads to the following Research Question:

What was the discourse of the institutions from the PRC in the formal, practical and popular dimension on the case of the position of the PRC regarding the South China Sea dispute

during the period of Xi’s first term? To answer the question, three sub-questions have been formulated:

1) What was the discourse of the PRC-based think tanks in the formal dimension during Xi’s first term?

2) What was the discourse of the actors from the PRC’s government in the practical dimension during Xi’s first term?

3) What was the discourse of the pro-CCP English language newspapers in the popular dimension during Xi’s first term?

Discourse Analysis

As the three questions focus on discourse, the method of discourse analysis must be discussed. Following the definition of discourse, Dittmer (2010) argues that discourse

analysis comprises of both the analysis of the claims the discourse sets out and the analysis of the power and positionality of those who construct the discourse. Thus, the sub-questions will develop an understanding of the first point, but can only do so when they have been

contextualized (Dittmer, 2010). While the Theoretical Framework has illustrated the background of both sides of discourse analysis, they must now be operationalized. Operationalization

Discourse constitutes a framework which creates reality, and the claims that form it must therefore be closely examined. Bryman (2012) argues that attention to rhetorical detail can give a good insight of how claims are constructed. Thus, by using Derrida’s notion of deconstruction, the discourse of the actors from the PRC can be identified (Bryman, 2012). Following this method, three more point are important. Firstly, the deconstruction will most likely point towards a common strategy that underlies the claims of reality and will therefore show what the hegemonic discourse looks like. Secondly, as multiple dimensions are studied, the hegemonic discourse in one dimension might be different in another dimension as

discourse remains a form of situated knowledge. Finally, discourse forms reality by claims in language, and it is argued here that the claims stem from events in the material world.

A (critical) geopolitical analysis of the discourse of the People's Republic of China regarding the South China Sea dispute