Securing the safety of navigation in East Asia: legal and political dimensions. Edited by Shicun Wu and Keyuan Zou: Solving disputes for regional cooperation and development in the South China Sea: a Chinese perspective. By Shicun Wu

Abstract

Securing the safety of navigation in East Asia: legal and political dimensions. Edited by Shicun Wu and Keyuan Zou. Oxford, Cambridge, Philadelphia and New Delhi: Chandos Publishing. 2013. 291pp. Index. £85.00. ISBN 978 0 85709 489 6. Available as e-book. Solving disputes for regional cooperation and development in the South China Sea: a Chinese perspective. By Shicun Wu. Oxford, Cambridge, Philadelphia and New Delhi: Chandos Publishing. 2013. 211pp. Index. £85.00. ISBN 978 1 84334 685 2. Available as e-book. The amount of attention paid to the South China and East China Seas has grown substantially over the last five years, usually focused on the role and activities of the People's Republic of China (China). This is often filtered through lenses such as ‘China's maritime disputes with its neighbours’, viewed either as an inevitable structural consequence of China's rise or the consequence of policy decisions by its leadership to take a more assertive approach in its near seas. Two recent books offer careful research which addresses these concerns and demonstrates the diversity and complexity of related maritime issues beyond disputes over ‘sovereignty’. The first, a substantial collection of papers edited by Shicun Wu and Keyuan Zou, comes at these maritime issues through the concept of ‘safety of navigation’, a concept which refers to issues such as traffic management and environmental protection, as well as the more political ‘freedom of navigation’.