South China Sea: Beijing’s Strategic Culture is Shaped by History

South China Sea: Beijing’s Strategic Culture is Shaped by History

A major conflagration of epic proportions that may involve some of the world’s most powerful sovereign powers is brewing in earnest in the South China Sea.

In all these cases, China wants to have it both ways, defying international good will and international law, at the expense of its own stature, making China a “Big Country” with a “Little Country” mentality, a classic Warring States syndrome that has permeated China’s strategic thinking for millennia.

This story originally appeared on Military History in the News at the Hoover Institution 

Image: DOD via Wikimedia