South China Sea claimants are not oblivious to the region's explosive potential. There have been several minor clashes between regional security forces, some of which have resulted in deaths of soldiers and marine personnel. Fishermen are routinely arrested and their equipment confiscated by patrolling coast-guard authorities. China's increasing assertiveness and its apparent claim to the entire South China Sea has set off alarm bells from Jakarta to Tokyo. The primary obstacle has been Beijing, which has tried to head off multilateral efforts to settle the various claims.
China believes that it can out-muscle any rival claimant in a bilateral setting.
Only in a multilateral forum can governments band together to balance Beijing. For that reason, China has opposed discussing the issue in such settings, acquiescing only when it believed that those rivals threatened to proceed in its absence. The result has been a frustrating stalemate, the continuing creep of the Chinese presence across the sea as it tries to achieve a fait accompli, and periodic clashes. As participants recounted the history of multilateral initiatives and proposed various ways forward, the inevitable rejoinder from seasoned veterans was that virtually all of them had been tried and all, despite initial progress, had bogged down. Structural solutions don't go anywhere.