Mapping a decade of disputant and non-disputant behaviors in the South China Sea dispute.

The present study looks at the patterns of behavior by disputant and non-disputant parties in the South China Sea dispute over the 2010–2022 period in a bid to identify trends and policy implications. The method involves building an original dataset of events spanning five categories in the South China Sea—namely administrative, economic, diplomatic, military, and non-military/maritime. The data, which tracks a total of 1099 events between January 2010 and December 2022, shows that the growing combativeness seen in the area is due to two factors: (i) disputants and non-disputants continue to take unilateral actions, including strengthening their naval and maritime enforcement agencies at an uneven rate; and (ii) existing maritime partnership initiatives and joint exercises have largely taken place in the form of competing factions and fallen short of agreeable outcomes. More importantly, the research illustrates the multifaceted nature of analyzing actions in unsettled territorial and maritime disputes because political actors would deploy not just military actions but also a host of non-military tools, such as legal submissions, tourism development, administrative rezoning and renaming, infrastructure upgrade, fishing moratorium, and deployment of civilian forces to stake claims over disputed territories. Considering the continuous military expansion and diverse territorialization activities, the prospect of a regional maritime order is not only uncertain but also unlikely to improve soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]