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

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

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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.

Keywords: Defense; Cold War; Mer de Chine méridionale; Security; European Community; NATO; South China Sea; OTAN; Communauté européenne; Sécurité; Guerre froide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08-26
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Published in The coveted South China Sea, between trade, tensions, and crises. Cross-cutting approaches from the 16th to the 21st century: Geopolitical approach to the South China Sea, from the 1960s to the present day, Centenary Congress of the International Committee of Historical Sciences, Aug 2026, Leipzig, Germany

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05733729

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