POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL PRESENCE OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

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The South China Sea and the ongoing dispute about territorial waters and exclusive economic zones over it is an issue that needs an inspection from both international relations and economic perspectives, making it a topic fit for commercial diplomacy. This paper aims to assess the investments to the region of China and its main competitor in the region, the USA. These investments can be military, economic, diplomatic, social, and other ways ranging from soft to hard power and to assess from cultural and historical perspectives to find out potential allegiances of the regional actors in this dispute. To determine these allegiances, we need to review first the reality of the situation; historical background, geographical basic information and similar information based on the facts of the region and conflict and some theories of international relations to understand how these facts interact with each other to form the dispute and maybe towards a future where all these conditions play out to a solution.