Since the end of the Cold War, the absence of balancing against the United States has led to further studies on the traditional theory of the balance of power and the balancing behavior itself. With respect to the interpretations on the absence of balancing, there have been various arguments related with power gap, threat balancing, regime, freedom and security community, norm and identity, dilemma of collective action and domestic factors of potential balancer. Based on these arguments, this paper attempts to reinterpret them from aspects of balancing behavior itself—conditions of balancing, origin of balancing, obstacles to balancing, and American counter balancing strategies. For conditions of balancing, we focus on the degree of power imbalance in traditional theory on the balance of power. With regard to origins of balancing, we argue that the object of balancing is not against the power itself, but the threat it might impose. In the discussion of obstacles to balancing, we argue that the study on the dilemma of collective action has revealed limits of the rational assumption about the balancer and that the study on domestic factors reveals limits of the unitary assumption on balancer. Discussion on counter balancing strategies concentrates on how the United States has taken advantage of a for mention mechanisms that give rise to the absence of balancing to evade being balanced.

The South China Sea issue derives from complicated historical and political backgrounds, which interacts with geopolitical situation and the development of international maritime law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Nowadays, the South China Sea issue has already been closely linked with the deconstruction and reconstruction of regional maritime order. The chronic South China Sea issue reflects many factors of disorder, such as disrespect of post Second World War regional order arrangement, limitations of UNCLOS and lack of regional mechanisms. More importantly, the South China Sea issue reflects the geopolitical gaming among maritime powers regarding the maritime rules and order. For China, the opportunities come together with challenges. China should take holistic attitudes towards the solution of South China Sea issue and the construction of regional maritime order, and make all efforts to turn the South China Sea as the sea of peace, friendship and cooperation.

Due to the appearance of new pattern of Sino-Japan relations and the stimulation of American Asia-Pacific policy since 2009, Japan has constantly disturbed China’s legal development of oil and gas in the west of “the Equidistance Line” so as to create a false impression in international community that it is disputable concerning the maritime area in the west of “the Equidistance Line”. The purposes of Japan’s attempts to dispute the maritime area in “the Equidistance Line” lie in compelling China to accept Japanese claim of “the Equidistance Line” and coordinating with Japan’s policy on Diaoyu Islands. The measures taken by Japan are untenable according to international law, but still have made a negative influence on China in fact, including interfering China’s normal petroleum development, aggravating the tense situation in East China Sea, and disguising disputes in the east of “the Equidistance Line”.