Who makes China’s policy?
I ventured into a debate between two eminent analysts of Chinese policy-making: Bonnie Glaser of CSIS in Washington and Linda Jakobson of the Lowy Institute in Sydney. Linda recently wrote a very good report highlighting how many of China’s actions in the South China Sea could be explained by the bureaucratic imperatives of the organisations […]
Global Asia – a ‘ fascinating account’
Nayan Chanda, the much respected former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, has written a lengthy review of the book for the excellent GlobalAsia website. He gives a good overview of the main elements of the book and adds a little vignette of his own about how the communist Vietnamese authorities issued a new map of the […]
WSJ ‘accessibility and accuracy’
A very nice review in the Wall Street Journal by Greg Poling of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. He calls the book, ‘the best combination of accessibility and accuracy so far published on the disputes’ – which is exactly what I hoped he would write! Greg’s a real expert on the nitty gritty of the […]
National Geographic Book Talk
An interview with Simon Worrall for National Geographic‘s Book Talk blog. An edited version of our conversation that necessarily simplifies some of my thoughts. Given that Simon wrote National Geographic’s feature on the Belitung Shipwreck (which features in Chapter One of the book) he knows a lot more than me about what happened. He was nice enough not […]
An Economist ‘book of the year’
I’m very pleased to say that The Economist has listed South China Sea – the struggle for power in Asia as one of its best books of 2014. I’m honoured that it’s among such exalted company as Evan Osnos’s Age of Ambition and Louisa Lim’s People’s Republic of Amnesia. You can read the full list of books of the […]
Introducing the book – a vodcast for Yale
A vodcast for Yale University Press in which I talk about how I came to write the book, why the islands of the South China Sea are both tiny but very important, the origins of China’s claim to the South China Sea and the importance of the South China Sea to the wider world. It’s […]
SCMP review – ‘superb and timely’
Ben Richardson of the South China Morning Post has given the book a great review. My thanks to him for these fine words, among others, “Hayton makes full use of his trade-craft to spin a page-turning thriller packed with anecdotes, historical characters and eye-witness accounts”. Since the SCMP, more-or-less, overlooks the South China Sea, this […]
US Speaking Tour – October 2014
I will be visiting the northeastern US in the second half of October to talk about the South China Sea. I’m doing about ten talks in all and most of them will be open to the public (although you might need to check or reserve a place in advance). There might even be an opportunity […]
A business angle – interview with BNN
Why the South China Sea matters to business – an interview with the Canadian business channel BNN. Topics included the importance of the US pivot to the region, the overlap between the regional territorial disputes and the wider strategic relationship between the US and China, how much oil and gas is really in the sea? […]
First review – “A splendid book”
A really excellent review of the book by The Economist, “Bill Hayton’s splendid book lucidly covers these disputes in all their complexity from virtually every angle—historical, legal, political, economic and strategic. A journalist with the BBC and author of a previous book on Vietnam, he tells a good yarn, even when the topic is as […]
