| Abstract: | The commencement of 21st Century brought the structural shift in global politics. Throughout the Asia given the structural incentives and constraints underscored the dominance of United States of America and the rising China. Implications of this structural adjustment have been vividly experienced in the South China Sea. Consequently, two observations have been noticed firstly, the decline of US presence and its uni-polar structure as a global hegemon, secondly, the rise of contradict ideological power under the grip of People’s Republic of China. Remarkably, these structural shift takes place due to the changing the world order from uni-polarity to multi-polarity. In the present paper it has been examined that the structural factors like material and military capability do affect the strategic behaviour of a nation but it cannot do so alone. Moreover, study has found the internal dimensions and factors like leadership, decision making and governing apparatus, ideology and other domestic factors has potentially affect the foreign policies in international politics. A detailed literature review underscored there are ample of literatures and discourses are available to analyse either systemic factor or domestic variables but there are very less studies are available which comprehensively explained such transmission in the South China Sea. Focus of the present paper is to analyse the both (internal and external) factors which contribute to the structural shift in the South China Sea. By following to the first objective secondly, it tries to explore implications of this structural shift and the roles played by the intervening variables of the states. |
