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While China has, over the past two decades, made impressive overall progress towards improving relations with its Southeast Asian neighbours, mounting tensions over these competing claims threaten to undermine its charm offensive. Following the aggressive manoeuvres by five Chinese vessels against the US ocean surveillance ship USNS Impeccable in March 2009 in the South China Sea, developments in those waters have attracted greater diplomatic and press attention. Many observers see China’s behaviour in the South China Sea as symptomatic of an increasingly ‘assertive’ diplomacy.
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The sovereignty disputes are about more than simply who owns particular features. They involve major themes of grand strategy and territorial defence, including the protection of sea lines of communication, energy, food and environmental security. They may also be linked to rising populist nationalism. The stakes are too high for imminent resolution; the rulers of states with maritime territorial claims in the South China Sea are convinced that compromise is not in their national interest. Rather, they (along with states without claims and non-state actors, such as energy companies) focus not so much on dispute resolution as on dispute management, with the aim of preventing conflict and preserving freedom of navigation and over-flight.
http://www.iiss.org/publications/sur...na-sea-debate/
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Throughout history, control of the seas has been a prerequisite for any country that wants to be considered a world power. China's military buildup has included a significant naval expansion. China now has 29 submarines armed with antiship cruise missiles, compared with just eight in 2002, according to Rand Corp
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/i...0103211602.jpg
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The Chinese military embarked on a military modernization effort designed to blunt U.S. power in the Pacific by developing what U.S. military strategists dubbed "anti-access, area denial" technologies.
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In 2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao unveiled a new military doctrine calling for the armed forces to undertake "new historic missions" to safeguard China's "national interests."
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China's technological advances have been accompanied by a shift in rhetoric by parts of its military. Hawkish Chinese military officers and analysts have long accused the U.S. of trying to contain China within the "first island chain" that includes Japan and the Philippines, both of which have mutual defense treaties with the U.S., and Taiwan, which the U.S. is bound by law to help defend. They now talk about pushing the U.S. back as far as Hawaii and enabling China's navy to operate freely in the western Pacific, the Indian Ocean and beyond.
"The U.S. has four major allies within the first island chain, and is trying to starve the Chinese dragon into a Chinese worm," Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, one of China's most outspoken military commentators, told a conference in September.
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The U.S. also is considering new land bases to disperse its forces throughout the region. President Barack Obama recently announced the U.S. would use new bases in Australia, including a major port in Darwin. Many of the bases aren't expected to have a permanent American presence, but in the event of a conflict, the U.S. would be able to base aircraft there.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...582060996.html