Sun Tzu Explains China’s Shaping Operations in the South China Sea

Jules Hurst

Security, Asia-Pacific

The Art of War helps expose the motivation behind past, current, and future Chinese actions.

In the past two weeks, Filipino President Duterte has agreed to 13.5 billion dollars in trade deals with China, softened his country’s claims to Scarborough Shoal, and called for the expulsion of U.S. troops. This Chinese relations coup, along with growing Asian appetite for alternative trade deals to the stalled Trans-Pacific Partnership and the creation of the Asian infrastructure development bank, illuminate China’s success in its contrarian campaign to the U.S. Pivot to Asia.  

Under the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Operational Planning Process, these efforts would be called shaping activities—interagency activities performed to dissuade or deter potential adversaries and to assure or solidify relationships with allies prior to the start of a conflict. As Paul Scharre recently pointed out, this phasing construct does not adapt to gray-zone conflicts, where adversaries aim to accomplish goals prior to major combat.