Raging Waters in the South China Sea: What the Battle for Supremacy Means for Southeast Asia.

Review

Being ignorant about China’s rich history and the underlying drive for world prominence, Raging Waters in the South China Sea is an incredible resource. This book holds important information, organized in easy-to-understand bundles for an ignorant like me. The ample use of maps charts, graphics and documents is extremely helpful and effective.

The author’s goal with this book is to lay a foundation for the public to understand the past and present events in the South China Sea, including how states are navigating the choppy waters of diplomacy regarding territorial claims and how decisions made now are shaping our world tomorrow.

 

Goodreads

Excerpt

What’s at Stake?

With the current state of tension between China and Western countries, as the waters and skies in the South China Sea heat up, either ASEAN will need to come together to make a unified decision about how to proceed or each state will be left to fend for itself and hedge based upon its own self-interests. China is banking on the latter since it is easier for mighty China to placate or muscle a single smaller state than to manage ASEAN as a whole. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a bellwether for the future of the South China Sea and possibly the world as a whole. China may have originally thought that picking off one boat or oil rig at a time would be ignored given the difficulty each state is facing. However, the level of assertiveness during the spring of 2020 was not composed of inconsequential ‘salami slices’, small and inconspicuous, but rather taken as a whole. They drew the West’s ire and ships from Europe, Australia, and North America entered the Southeast Asian paradise to counter China’s attack on rule of law, sovereignty, and Code of Conduct.

The following are a few of the points determined by the Permanent Court of Arbitration tribunal award in a sweeping rebuke.

1. The nine-dash line is contrary to UNCLOS and has no basis in law;

2. Scarborough Shoal and five (5) other reefs named in our submission are rocks that generate no entitlements to an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf;

3. Scarborough Shoal has been a traditional fishing ground for fishermen of many nationalities and that China has unlawfully prevented Filipino fishermen from engaging in traditional fishing

4. Mischief Reef, Second Thomas Shoal and Reed Bank are submerged at high tide, form part of the Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf of the Philippines and are not overlapped by any possible entitlement of China;

5. Reed Bank is an entirely submerged reef formation that cannot give rise to maritime entitlements;

6. China violated its obligations under UNCLOS to protect and preserve the marine environment; and

7. China has engaged in the construction of artificial islands, installations, and structures at Mischief Reef without the authorization of the Philippines.4 Furthermore, on June 30, 2016, in a surprising reversal of foreign policy, incoming Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who took office only twelve days earlier, decided not to retake the islands that he was legally assured based upon the tribunal ruling. Instead, President Xi offered Duterte $24 billion in deals which silenced the issue.5

 

Biography

Dr. Rachel A. Winston is a professor, researcher, and analyst who writes and publishes books and articles on various aspects of education. As a scientist, mathematician, and leadership expert, she has been a professor of college counseling, mathematics, and engineering as well as a trusted global college admissions consultant. With more than three decades of experience in higher education, she has taught at major universities in the United States and studied at more than a dozen colleges including: Harvard, UCLA, USC, NYU, and GWU as well as graduate school in China. As a mathematician, she won the Cryptanalyst Award at a National Science Foundation program in Bletchley Park, England.

Living in Europe and the Washington, D.C. area as a child and traveling to a hundred countries throughout her life, her broad range of experience has made her one of the leading cross cultural consultants. She trained counselors around the world teaching in the UCLA College Counseling Certificate Program. 

Starting college at thirteen and winning the National High School Senior of the Year from the American Legion, she has earned many undergraduate and graduate degrees. Dr. Winston holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and numerous master’s degrees, including her most recent M.S. in Publishing from The George Washington University.

In her Southern California community, she served on the Board of Directors of the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce, Leadership Tomorrow, and the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, and was also the Education Committee Director of the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce. She served the Regional Coordinator for the Mathematical Association of America. Prior to coming to California she worked on Capitol Hill, the White House, and the U.S. Department of Labor. She won the 2012 McFarland Literary Achievement Award and has spoken at over a hundred local and national meetings and conferences. Dr. Winston published her first mathematics book in the 80s and spends her life serving and inspiring students to achieve their college and career goals.