[Recording] On Dangerous Ground: America’s Century in the South China Sea

Recorded 11.02.2022

This talk was hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by the New York Southeast Asia Institute and the China and the World Program. Gregory Poling, Director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, was in conversation with Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Columbia University, and Thomas Christensen, James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations; Director, China and the World Program, Columbia University.

In On Dangerous Ground, Poling evaluates US interests in the world's most complex and dangerous maritime disputes by examining more than a century of American involvement in the South China Sea. He focuses on how the disputes there intersected and eventually intertwined with the longstanding US commitment to freedom of the seas and its evolving alliance network in Asia. He shows that these abiding national interests—defense of maritime rights and commitment to allies, particularly the Philippines—have repeatedly pulled US attention to the South China Sea. Understanding how and why is critical if the US and its allies hope to chart a course through the increasingly fraught disputes, while facing a more assertive, more capable, and far less compromising China.