Discussion On Solving The Problem Of South China Sea By "Common Development" Principle

Chinese government once formulated a guiding principle to solve the South China Sea Issue, which is “Shelve Disputes and Carry Out Joint Development”. This guideline relieved the inflammatory situation around South China Sea region in some degrees, but it did not completely solve the problem. The first reason is that there exist no mature international social system between China and these southeast Asian countries, while the second reason is the interference of countries outside. As for the two reasons mentioned above, various discussions including criticism on this “Joint Development” policy appeared in the academic community.The thesis argues that the core source of the South China Sea Issue is the traditional concept of “supremacy of state sovereignty”, which means only with the territory under the sovereignty of national states, a country can own definite right to control its territories in the theory sense of law. The excessive sovereignty-regard tendency will make a country ignore the idea of joint management, missing the opportunity to enlarge common income. To sum up, only with new consideration and discussion for the concept of territory sovereignty and exploring the understanding as well as forgiveness between these disputed countries, we can find a way to solve the disputes and joint develop the South China Sea, which can finally lead the “Shelve Disputes and Carry Out Joint Development” policy deserves its name.