High-resolution carbonate stratigraphy of the deep-sea core MD972151 from the southwestern South China Sea shows millennial-scale variability similar to oxygen isotopic fluctuations recorded in ice cores from Greenland. In a long term of glacial-interglacial scale, carbonate contents in the interglacial time (up to 25 % by weight) were higher than that in the glacial periods (5-15 % by weight). Even for the last glacial, carbonate contents are relatively high in the interstadial events and low in the stadial horizons. This demonstrates clearly that carbonate content in the continental slope above the lysocline in the southwestern South China Sea is primarily controlled by dilution of terrigenous inputs, which in turn is due to sea-level fluctuations in response to changes of ice volume in high latitude regions.