"China has once again gotten under the skin of its neighbors — this time with a few offending strokes on a map here, printed on its revised passports, that show Beijing staking its claim on the entire South China Sea, Taiwan and regions of contention between India and China," according to an article on 24 November in the Global Business Times, a digital global news publication here

Passports don't change the realities on the
ground as rival claims have become more assertive following the recent
U.S. Pivot to Asia. Let's not forget these disputes have been around and
lying reasonably dormant for a long time.

China's
neigbours welcome a free ride on the U.S. Pivot to hedge against a
800-pound panda, even if it is arguably benign as nearly all of
China's neighbours, including Japan, depend on the Middle Kingdom as
their largest trading partner.

The Pivot,
however, means only that the U.S primarily wants to re-balance the
dynamics in the Asia Pacific. America doesn't necessarily
want to go to war with China over these tiny islands or outcrops.

So while not taking sides on territorial disputes, America is boosting
up Asian Pacific allies' military comfort zone to stand up to China.
However, the United States doesn't want these allies, especially Japan,
to push the envelop too far so as to precipate an actual war,
which would then force the U.S to side with its allies in a frontal
conflict against China.

So the ideal situation for the U.S. is
that China is kept in check by her neigbours under a U.S. umbrella, in
the form of closer military ties rather than stationing massive hardware
or boots on the ground.

The danger is that while things are
hotting up in the South China Sea, the absence of an agreed code of
conduct in these waters may well spin things out of control with
unintended, unwelcomed and uncontrollable military escalations for the
entire region.

In a recent Op-ed article in the South China Morning Post here I
argued for such a code of conduct, setting aside territorial
disputes for the future and re-focussing on econcomic cooperation.

Absent such a code of conduct, against more and more strident rival
territorial claimants, China is being handed a golden opportunity to
assert more proactively her own long-held territorial claims, something
she would be hard-pressed to do without the Pivot.

So now China has succeeded in establishing a military garrison (though
tiny) right in the heart of the South China Sea between the Paracels and
the Spratlys. And China is deploping un-armed civilian marine
adminstration surveillance vessels in a "political exercise of sea power".
Click here

Naturally the South China Sea is more than just territorial integrity.
It constains vital sea lanes for China's economic survival. A further
attraction is of course the known energy and other resources in these
vital waters.

But even more than these is that the South and
East China Seas have become the main theatre for U.S.-China geopolitical
rivalry as America is pivoting towards the region and China is
developing her blue-water navy.

Amidst the discord, it may be opportune to re-think a possible new Asian Order. Click here

Despite such geopolitical rivarly, there is more that China can deliver
as a partner and stakeholder than as a U.S adversary. For example,
China can help the U.S. achieve its desired re-balancing in the Asia
Pacific theatre as seen by Zbigniew Brzezinski’s "Strategic Vision:
America and the Crisis of Global Power” without being pushed into a
corner in a Cold War mentality. Click here

These geopolitical considerations are very much on the minds of China's
new leaders even as they grapple with the Middle Kingdom's
critical domestic challenges.

Watch a TV panel discussion on PressTV here