Conclusion

Abstract

The primary goal of the presented book has been to answer the question of what has driven the Chinese assertive policies in the South China Sea. Throughout the text, the main focus has been put on the dominant ‘power shift’ theory. Producing relevant answers required a set of steps—to establish the theoretical basis with regard to the assertive China discourse, to develop a conceptualization of power suitable for the analysis, to conduct a detailed description of the events which took place in the SCS in the relevant period, to assess China’s power by following the presented conceptual requirements, and to link the findings about China’s power to China’s assertive policies in the SCS. Furthermore, after showing that the main hypothesis does not explain the assertive policies sufficiently, the discussion about the validity of the alternative hypotheses was presented, which in the end produced a complete theory of Chinese assertiveness in the SCS.

The concluding part of the book consists of two sections. Firstly, summaries of all the findings and assertions from each chapter of the book will be presented, including the findings regarding the validity of the main and alternative hypotheses. Secondly, the outcomes of the research will be discussed from a broader perspective. In particular, it will be discussed what the findings tell us about China’s power, Chinese foreign policy, and Indo-Pacific politics in general and what the takeaways of the research are in terms of the suggested concept of power and its demonstrative application. Finally, a brief postscript will discuss how the new Trump administration in the USA might affect the complex power dynamics in the region.