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The South China Sea seen from Brussels: European Community, NATO, and the Construction of an Analytical Foundation
[La mer de Chine méridionale vue depuis Bruxelles. L’Europe communautaire, l’OTAN et la construction d’un socle analytique]

Author

Listed:
  • Maxime Ghazarian

    (CRISES - Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires en Sciences humaines et Sociales de Montpellier - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3)

Abstract

This paper examines how NATO and the European Community understood and conceptualized the South China Sea between 1974 and the late 1980s. Its aim is to explore how now-riparian states gradually learned to think about this maritime space. Although they did not develop a common policy towards it - none existed during the period under consideration - they nevertheless constructed an "analytical foundation" grounded in consultation, the circulation of information, and the comparison of national expertise. Initially viewed through the prism of the strategic orientations of the People's Republic of China, and subsequently as an area of Soviet power projection, the South China Sea eventually came to be recognized as a regional source of instability with dynamics of its own. This trajectory thus reveals both the long-standing nature of Euro-Atlantic attention to the region and the gradual transformation of the analytical lens through which it was perceived.

Suggested Citation

  • Maxime Ghazarian, 2026. "The South China Sea seen from Brussels: European Community, NATO, and the Construction of an Analytical Foundation [La mer de Chine méridionale vue depuis Bruxelles. L’Europe communautaire, l’OTAN et la construction d’un socle analytique]," Post-Print hal-05733729, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05733729
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