The Great Wall of Sand at Sea

Abstract

This research focusses on the Chinese navy and its use of the concept ‘sea power’ with regard to two disputed territories at sea. One of the cases being the Spratly Islands located in the South China Sea, the other being the Senkaku Islands located in the East China Sea. The research done in this thesis concludes that the current Chinese understanding and use of the concept of sea power is largely based upon ideas originating from the West, with a twist coming from their own historic traditions. By using the two cases central to this research to test the theory, it finds that for its Western idea of sea power, the Chinese navy mainly draws from the Brit Corbett and the American Mahan. Their own twist has been given by the ideas of Sun Tzu.