Beijing’s Next Play for the South China Sea

In April 2025, Chinese coast guard personnel stepped onto Sandy Cay, an uninhabited sandbar in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, and unfurled the Chinese flag. In much of the world, this act passed almost unnoticed. But as China’s first formal, on-the-ground assertion of sovereignty over an unoccupied land feature in more than a decade, it signaled a broader shift in Beijing’s quest for control: China is again contesting disputed land features, after years in which disputes over rights at sea have been the primary source of conflict.