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The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted its sixth annual South China Sea conference in July 2016. The conference provided four panels of highly respected experts from 10 countries with a first opportunity to assess the results of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea tribunal ruling and begin to measure its impact. This report contains papers by 10 of the panelists, providing a wide array of perspectives on the political, legal, military, and environmental outlook for the South China Sea in 2016.

With elections in both the Philippines and the United States in 2016, the future of the alliance must be institutionalized to ensure that it is not diminished by a change of leadership in either country. A new Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement and cooperation in the South China Sea are important components of the new era of relations, but they are not and should not be the only defining features of the alliance. Given the long history of U.S.-Philippine relations, the alliance must be based on more robust cooperation across the spectrum of political, security, economic, and sociocultural relations. Security concerns provide an acute impetus for leaders to put more energy into the relationship, but its sustainability will require a more comprehensive focus.

Building on a careful analysis of Southeast Asia's recent history, politics, economics, and place within the Asia Pacific, this report looks forward two decades to anticipate the development of trends in the region and how they will impact the U.S.-Japan alliance. How will Southeast Asian states come to grips with the political and economic rise of China? How will they modernize their military forces and security relationships, and what role can the United States and Japan play? How will they manage their disputes in the South China Sea, and how will they pursue greater regional integration? These questions will prove critical in understanding Southeast Asia's role in the Asia Pacific, and in the U.S.-Japan alliance, in the decades ahead.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted its fifth annual South China Sea conference in July 2015. This compilation features papers from some of the top experts in the United States and Asia, who presented during the day's panels. Bill Hayton, Bonnie Glaser, and Wu Shicun discuss recent developments in the South China Sea; Pham Lan Dung and Tran Huu Duy Minh explore legal issues surrounding the disputes; and Ian Storey, Patrick Cronin, Renato Cruz de Castro, and Peter Jennings examine various aspects of the military balance and regional order.

The South China Sea is arguably one of the world's most dangerous regions, with conflicting diplomatic, legal, and security claims by major and mid-level powers. To assess these disputes, CSIS brought together an international group of experts—from Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam. This volume gathers these experts'analyses to provide a diverse and wide-ranging set of perspectives on the region and to explore possibilities for future cooperation.

A New Era of U.S.-Vietnam Relations examines the history of the relationship and offers concrete recommendations for policymakers in both countries to deepen cooperation across each major area of the relationship: political and security ties, trade and economic linkages, and people-to-people connections.

Satellite imagery and geospatial analysis tools offer an unprecedented opportunity to harness new technologies in order to help resolve boundary disputes. The South China Sea in Focus: Clarifying the Limits of Maritime Dispute uses these tools to provide a first and necessary step toward tackling the overlapping maritime disputes in the South China Sea: determining which waters are and are not in dispute under international law. The report opens with a set of geographic information system (GIS)–based maps that provide an easily understandable benchmark against which policymakers and academics can judge the claims and actions of the South China Sea claimants. More detailed color maps and methodological information follow for those who want to dig deeper into the claims and the report's conclusions.

A U.S.-Indonesia Partnership for 2020 explores avenues to boost cooperation in all three of these pillars. Political and security relations between the United States and Indonesia have grown more robust in recent years. Trade and economic relations, while growing, remain contentious. This study assesses progress on these two pillars, along with the under-resourced field of people-to-people collaboration, and offers recommendations to take the partnership to the next level in each area.