Mischief Reef

This seven-chapter book examines the background to and consequences of the disputed occupation of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands group of the South China Sea (SCS) by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), from the mid-1990s to the present day. Although Mischief Reef has received significant media attention and has been discussed in academic journal articles and policy research reports, no books on the topic have appeared since a 30-page publication in 1996. By covering the topic in historical, domestic political, legal, economic, strategic, and geo-political terms, this book not only fills a gap on a particularly important issue with global consequences, but also acts as a follow-on to a previous Palgrave book by this author on another maritime dispute, Socotra Rock. This book will be of interest to journalists, scholars and legal theorists researching the implications of China's rise for maritime disputes in East Asia.

Senan Fox is a Lecturer in the School of International Studies, Kanazawa University in Japan, and specializes in East Asia maritime disputes and related issues. With a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, he has been awarded funding from the University of Tokyo for research on these regional disputes, and more recently from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for research on China’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea and also the Konosuke Matsushita (Panasonic) Memorial Foundation for research into Sino-Japanese relations and rare-earth elements.