Daniel Schaeffer “Why China Wants the South China Sea For Itself Alone”

An excerpt from, "South China Sea: The French Are Coming" By Yo-Jung Chen, The Diplomat, July 14, 2016:

China’s aggressive territorial push in the South China Sea has resulted in turning this busy international trade route into one of the most volatile spots in the world.

The U.S.-led international efforts to defend the freedom of navigation guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), aiming at preventing the entire South China Sea from becoming an exclusive Chinese lake, has just received a powerful boost in the form of the July 12 ruling of The Hague-based UN Permanent Court of Arbitration. Much to China’s anger, most of its sovereignty claims over the South China Sea are rejected in this ruling.

To the surprise of many, a seemingly unrelated European power, France, has announced its intention of coordinating the navies of fellow European Union nations to conduct Freedom of Navigation Operations or FONOPs in South China Sea. On June 5, at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian mentioned this initiative for joint EU patrols of “the maritime areas of Asia” and for a “regular and visible presence there.”

Video Title: Daniel Schaeffer “Why China Wants the South China Sea For Itself Alone.” Source: Yale University. Date Published: May 13, 2016. Description: 

Daniel Schaeffer, Asia think-tank 21, France. Presented at Conflict in the South China Sea, May 6-7, 2016.

An international conference at Yale exploring the history of the ongoing dispute in the South China Sea, featuring speakers from universities and research institutions in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, the Philippines, and across the United States. The two-day event was hosted by Yale’s Council on Southeast Asian Studies http://cseas.yale.edu/, with additional support from the Council on East Asian Studies http://ceas.yale.edu/, and the Institute for Vietnamese Culture and Education http://www.ivce.org/.  For the full list of speakers, please visit: http://cseas.yale.edu/sites/default/f... To view all the videos from this conference, follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...