Sovereign Tropes
A Rhetorical Critique of Contested Claims in the South China Sea
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12465151 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stephen John Hartnett (0009-0006-6679-4781, corresponding author), Bryan R Reckard |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 291-338 |
| Publication date | 2017-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Rhetoric and Public Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1094-8392 • E-ISSN: 1534-5238 |
| Publisher | Michigan State University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.14321/rhetpublaffa.20.2.0291 |
| OpenAlex | W2759703987 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 24 |
The South China Sea is the world’s busiest and most important waterway, serving as the crossroads of global capitalism and the connective tissue of Southeast Asia. With shipping routes, underwater resources, and hundreds of small islands claimed by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and others, the area stands among the world’s most contested regions. Since 1945, the United States Navy has dominated the area, but that hegemony is now in question as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) becomes more assertive as a rising power. In efforts to justify their clashing claims over the region, the United States and the PRC have launched campaigns against each other, producing a rhetorical crisis that may foreshadow war. To try to make sense of the rhetoric driving this crisis, the first part of this essay unpacks some of the colorful history of the South China Sea—its legacy of rogues, pirates, opium wars, and so on—to argue that it has always been less of a governed and ordered place and more of a transitory and heterodox space crisscrossed by overlapping intentions, designs, and dreams. From this perspective, any nation’s claims to sovereignty are fictions that aspire to be constitutive, albeit by erasing the constitutive claims of others. The second section of the essay then addresses the PRC’s use of “traumatized nationalism” to advocate for its rights in the South China Sea, while the third section tackles the United States’ use of “belligerent humanitarianism” to justify its actions. The essay concludes with an appeal for a postnational version of shared governance, called for in the name of defending the global commons from the militarized encroachments of nation-states
Belligerent · Capitalism · China · Economics · Economy · Hegemony · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Sovereignty · Law · Maritime Security and History · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
The age of revolution, 1789-1848
Walled States, Waning Sovereignty
Die vielköpfige Hydra
Mobility without Mayhem
The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 10. Late Ch'ing, 1800-1911. Part 1
The “China Seas” in world history
The ‘Tianxia Trope’
From Zero-sum Game to Positive-sum Game
History, Tradition and the China Dream
Rethinking the Chinese World Order
How American Treaty Behavior Threatens National Security
Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea
Sovereignty Discourse and Contemporary Immigration Politics
Google and the “Twisted Cyber Spy” Affair
In search of ‘the people’
Tibet is Burning
Constitutive rhetoric
The Honourable Company
Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
The Political Unconscious
The Folly of Fighting for Providence, or, the End of Empire and Exceptionalism
Floating Bombs Encircling Our Shores
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,13 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2018 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |