South China Sea Near Miss — An Escalation Spiral Both Sides

📡 THE SIGNAL

Why it matters: The incident where US and Chinese warships approached within approximately 100 meters near the Spratly Islands is the most dangerous maritime encounter in recent years, indicating that the South China Sea flashpoint has entered a new phase where the risk of miscalculation outweighs diplomatic safeguards.

• Incident — On March 17, 2026, a US Navy destroyer and a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) frigate approached within approximately 100 meters near the Spratly Islands.
• Incident — This was the closest US-China maritime encounter in the South China Sea in at least the past three years, surpassing the 150-meter incident in December 2023.
• Military — At the time of the encounter, both nations were simultaneously conducting military exercises in overlapping areas of the South China Sea.
• Diplomacy — The US condemned China's "dangerous and unprofessional" maneuver, while China accused the US of "deliberate provocative acts" operating within China's sovereign territorial waters.
• Legal — The Spratly Islands remain subject to overlapping territorial claims by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan.
• Strategy — Since 2013, China has constructed and militarized at least seven artificial islands in the Spratly Islands, including runways capable of operating fighter jets and missile batteries.
• Alliances — With the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) expanded to nine sites in 2023, the US is strengthening its rotational military presence near the disputed waters.
• Economy — Approximately $3.4 trillion in trade passes through the South China Sea annually, accounting for roughly one-third of global maritime trade.
• Military — The US Navy conducted at least 10 Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea in 2025, maintaining a pace consistent with previous years.
• Diplomacy — The US-China military hotline, reopened at the end of 2023, reportedly experienced communication delays during the incident, raising questions about the reliability of crisis communication channels.
• Regional — ASEAN member states have not reached a final agreement on a binding Code of Conduct for the South China Sea, despite over two decades of negotiations.
• Intelligence — Satellite imagery from recent weeks indicates an increased deployment of PLAN surface combatants in the southern South China Sea, including at least two Type 055 destroyers.

The near miss near the Spratly Islands is not an isolated incident but the latest pressure point in a structural conflict that has been building for over 30 years. To understand why this is happening now, we need to trace the arc from the post-Cold War unipolar era to China's rise as a maritime power and the gradual hardening of both nations' strategic postures in the Western Pacific.

While the South China Sea has been a contested region for centuries, the modern crisis truly began in the 1990s. With the end of the Cold War and the withdrawal of the Soviet Pacific Fleet from Cam Ranh Bay in 1991, a power vacuum emerged in Southeast Asian waters. China swiftly filled that vacuum. In 1992, Beijing enacted the Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, formally asserting sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel Islands (Xisha Qundao). In 1995, China occupied Mischief Reef, claimed by the Philippines, constructing structures on what was previously a submerged reef. At the time, the US, focused on the Middle East and operating under the premise that economic engagement would lead to China's political liberalization, limited its response to diplomatic protests and did not mount a sustained military counter-presence.

The turning point came between 2009 and 2013. In 2009, China submitted its infamous "nine-dash line" map to the UN, claiming historical rights to approximately 90% of the South China Sea. This maximalist claim put Beijing on a collision course with nearly all littoral states and the US-backed rules-based maritime order under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). From 2013 onwards, China embarked on an unprecedented island-building campaign in the Spratly Islands, dredging sand to create artificial islands, which were then rapidly militarized with runways, radar facilities, anti-ship cruise missile batteries, and surface-to-air missile systems. By 2016, when the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that China's nine-dash line claims had no legal basis under UNCLOS, Beijing had already created facts on the water and simply rejected the ruling.

The US response evolved slowly. The Obama administration's "pivot to Asia," announced in 2011, was under-resourced and competed with ongoing commitments in the Middle East. Freedom of Navigation Operations continued but were sporadic and carefully calibrated to avoid escalation. The Trump administration (2017-2021) escalated rhetoric and increased the frequency of FONOPs but introduced transactional unpredictability, unsettling regional allies. The Biden administration (2021-2025) invested heavily in alliance architecture — the AUKUS submarine deal with Australia and the UK, expanded EDCA sites in the Philippines, and deepened the Quad — but China continued to strengthen its military superiority in its near seas.

As of 2026, the structural factors for escalation are intensifying. First, China's naval capabilities have grown dramatically. The PLAN is the world's largest navy by vessel count, with over 370 ships, and its shipbuilding capacity dwarfs that of the US. Type 055 cruisers, comparable to the US Ticonderoga class, are being deployed in increasing numbers to the South China Sea. Second, domestic politics in both countries reward hawkish postures. In the US, bipartisan consensus on confronting China is one of the few political agreements. In China, Xi Jinping has staked national prestige on sovereignty issues, and any impression of retreat carries a domestic legitimacy cost. Third, the proliferation of surveillance technologies — drones, satellites, AIS tracking — means every encounter is recorded and publicized, making quiet de-escalation difficult. Fourth, the alliance network built by the US means incidents now have multilateral implications. A clash near the Spratly Islands immediately involves the security calculations of the Philippines, Japan, and Australia.

The 100-meter near miss is not an accident but the logical consequence of two large navies operating in an increasingly contested space with diminishing buffers. The geography of the South China Sea — constrained waterways, overlapping territorial claims, and artificial islands functioning as "unsinkable aircraft carriers" — makes close encounters structurally inevitable. The question is no longer whether such incidents will occur, but whether crisis management mechanisms can prevent them from spiraling into armed conflict.

The Nature of the Shift: The 100-meter near miss symbolizes a qualitative shift from routine friction to a genuine risk of miscalculation. Past close encounters occurred at greater distances, and communication channels were functional. This incident combines unprecedented physical proximity with reports of military hotline communication delays, suggesting that crisis management infrastructure is degrading precisely when it is most needed. The fact that both sides were simultaneously conducting military exercises in overlapping areas indicates a competitive presence strategy that makes such incidents structurally inevitable rather than accidental.