Nalanda Roy, The South China Sea Dispute: Past, Present, and Future
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797018823973 |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Review
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
6(1) 96–105, 2019
The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/2347797018823973
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Nalanda Roy, The South China Sea Dispute: Past, Present, and Future.
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016, 161 pp., US$ 57.46 (hardbound).
ISBN: 9781498536233.
In her book The South China Sea Disputes, Nalanda Roy gives readers what she
refers to as a ‘policy-orientated analytical narrative targeting interested attentive-
elite readers’ (p. 8). In just over 100 pages of text, she provides a succinct and very
readable, but largely descriptive, history of the various South China Sea (SCS)
disputes. Her chapters explore issues such as the strategic and economic
importance of the SCS disputes, a historical background, the role of external
powers in the SCS, as well as the role of the Association of South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN). In the last 12 pages of the book, she even engages international
relations (IR) theory and tends to view constructivism as a major reason for the
absence of war in the SCS.
In the first two chapters, she provides a short background on each state involved
in the dispute and analyses their particular claims. Importantly, she also explains
the role of energy and other natural resources in the SCS. The second chapter
gives a solid description of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
and why it is relevant. In the third chapter, she provides detailed descriptions of
various clashes in the SCS. A table on pages 45–46 is very helpful in demonstrating
that China is not the only state that has seized and militarized territory in the SCS.
In the fourth chapter, she offers an analysis of the emerging geopolitics of the
region and how these are connected to events in the Indian Ocean and the role of
the American navy. She also discusses how the Indian Navy is expanding
operations into...
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