For years, China relied on massive island-building projects and increasingly aggressive confrontations at sea to expand its influence in the South China Sea. Now, according to a new analysis by Lynn Kuok, the Lee Kuan Yew Chair at the Brookings Institution writing in Foreign Affairs, Beijing appears to be pursuing a more subtle but potentially more effective strategy.

Rather than focusing only on large artificial islands and dramatic confrontations, Kuok argues that China is gradually establishing control over small, unoccupied features that many governments may consider too insignificant to defend. Taken individually, these actions appear minor. Together, she believes they could fundamentally reshape the strategic balance across one of the world’s most important waterways.

A Strategy Measured in Decades

Kuok describes China’s objective as “the steady accumulation of advantage rather than a single decisive victory.” Instead of launching actions that immediately provoke international backlash, Beijing is pursuing a long-term campaign that normalizes its presence until that presence eventually becomes accepted as reality.

The strategy became particularly visible in April 2025 when Chinese Coast Guard personnel landed on Sandy Cay, an uninhabited sandbar in the Spratly Islands, and raised the Chinese flag. The event attracted little international attention, but Kuok argues it represented China’s first formal assertion of sovereignty over an unoccupied land feature in more than a decade and marked an important shift in Beijing’s approach.

For years, China’s expansion focused on enlarging seven reefs it already occupied through massive dredging operations that created military bases complete with runways, ports, missile facilities, and surveillance systems. Now Beijing appears willing to extend that approach to previously unoccupied features, despite a 2002 political commitment between China and ASEAN members to avoid inhabiting such locations.

Why Empty Islands Matter

At first glance, fighting over tiny sandbars may seem irrational. In reality, these isolated features can have enormous strategic value.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, naturally occurring islands may generate territorial waters extending up to 12 nautical miles. Depending on their characteristics, some can also influence broader maritime claims. While international law surrounding many of these features remains disputed, occupying them creates opportunities to strengthen future legal and political arguments.

Kuok argues that Sandy Cay illustrates this perfectly. The sandbar sits less than two nautical miles from Thitu Island, a Philippine-controlled outpost. By asserting sovereignty over Sandy Cay, China potentially narrows the Philippines’ freedom of operation around one of its most important positions in the Spratly Islands and creates a basis for future objections to Philippine patrols and activities.

Even more importantly, occupation of additional features could eventually allow China to establish a chain of overlapping military, surveillance, and administrative positions extending across much of the South China Sea.

Bullying in the Gray Zone

China’s approach is not limited to planting flags.

According to Kuok, Beijing increasingly combines symbolic acts with constant pressure at sea. Chinese vessels continue interfering with fishing operations, offshore energy development, and maritime patrols conducted by neighboring countries inside their exclusive economic zones. At the same time, China increasingly relies on research vessels, temporary floating platforms, administrative actions, and marine surveys that often fall into legal gray areas.

These tactics are difficult to counter because each individual action appears relatively minor. Governments may conclude that responding risks escalation while ignoring the incident allows China to gradually normalize its presence.

That strategy has been particularly visible in China’s dealings with the Philippines.

Repeated Confrontations with the Philippines

The Philippines has become the country most willing to publicly challenge Chinese activities in the South China Sea.

The disputes stretch back years. A 2016 international tribunal in The Hague ruled that China’s sweeping “nine-dash line” claim had no legal basis and affirmed Philippine sovereign rights in areas such as Reed Bank and Second Thomas Shoal. China rejected the ruling and eventually resumed many of the activities that the tribunal found unlawful.

Since then, confrontations have become routine.

According to Kuok, Chinese Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels have used military-grade lasers, water cannons, dangerous maneuvering, ramming incidents, and obstruction of Philippine resupply missions to isolated outposts. Although clashes temporarily declined after a provisional arrangement reached in 2024, incidents have continued, including reports that Chinese Coast Guard personnel struck a Filipino sailor with a wooden baton during a close encounter in July 2026.

Separate reporting cited in the source material describes additional incidents near Thitu Island, where Philippine officials accused Chinese Coast Guard ships of firing water cannons and deliberately ramming the BRP Datu Pagbuaya while it was anchored near Philippine-controlled territory. Philippine officials characterized the actions as “bullying” and pledged they would not abandon their positions despite increasing pressure.

Expanding Control Through Persistence

China’s long-term objective appears to extend well beyond isolated confrontations.

Kuok warns that if Beijing eventually occupies and militarizes additional locations such as Scarborough Shoal, those positions, combined with existing bases throughout the Paracel and Spratly Islands, would significantly strengthen China’s ability to monitor maritime traffic, project military power, and extend surveillance closer to Taiwan and the Luzon Strait.

The concern is not simply about one island or one confrontation. It is about establishing enough physical presence that China’s claims gradually become accepted as the practical reality.

That strategy relies on patience. Rather than seeking one dramatic victory, Beijing advances incrementally, betting that neighboring countries, facing economic pressures and competing priorities, will eventually conclude that resisting every small encroachment simply is not worth the cost.

From that perspective, what appears to be bullying may also serve a larger strategic purpose. Constant low-level pressure tests the willingness of smaller nations to defend remote outposts while slowly expanding China’s effective control over disputed waters. If enough of these seemingly insignificant actions go unanswered, today’s isolated sandbars could become tomorrow’s accepted Chinese territory, bringing Beijing one step closer to dominating much of the South China Sea.