ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the 2012 Scarborough Shoal stand-off between the Philippines and China as a case study of conflict escalation of the South China Sea dispute. It examines China's coercive strategy against the Philippines that began as early as 1995, when Chinese forces occupied Mischief Reef. The Philippines' claim on the Spratlys was originally staked out by Captain Tomas Cloma, who, in 1956, discovered a group of islands in the South China Sea, which he called Kalayaan Islands. China bases its sacred and inalienable claim is actually predicated on China's geostrategic exigencies and status as a great power in East Asia. The image of China as a benign and responsive great power in East Asia gradually dissipated as Beijing pursued its expansive claims to the South China Sea and began applying its coercive strategy against the small claimant states in the second decade of the twenty-first century.
