China’s creeping occupation of the South China Sea is not primarily motivated by oil, let alone by its diminishing stock of fish. It is about two things: strategic position, and what the nationalists running the country today view as its “manifest destiny”, to borrow a phrase from American history.
The sense that China is entitled to possession of this sea lies deep in the nation’s history of viewing its neighbours, especially those untouched by Chinese culture, as inferiors. China no longer feels a need to be liked. The promise of its “peaceful rise” has been replaced by jingoist actions designed to appeal to a domestic audience.
It may be decades before China has naval power to match that of the US and its Pacific allies – but by establishing footholds far from its own shores it overawes the neighbours and poses a threat to bigger nations and their trade. It is an early stage in the plan of turning the South China Sea, which for 2,000 years has been a meeting point of cultures and a global trade thoroughfare, but never dominated by China, into a “Chinese lake”.