China Huffs and Puffs Some More, to Uncertain Effect

[Bonobo]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/china-huffs-and-puffs-som_b_4591908.html

The latest aggressive Chinese move in the Western Pacific? Decreeing that all fishing vessels must have Chinese permission to operate in the South China Sea, virtually all of which it claims as its sovereign territory to the dismay of the other nations on the South China Sea. This comes on the heels of China's clearly not unrelated claiming of an air defense zone over much of the East China Sea, including territory held by Japan and South Korea.

At the end of last week, the US State Department, with our Asia-Pacific pivot underway, condemned the latest Chinese move as "provocative and potentially dangerous."

Beginning with a series of clashes with Vietnam and the Philippines over South China Sea islands, oil and gas drilling territory, and fishing grounds before moving to Beijing's stunningly expansive claim of virtually the entire South China Sea as its own sovereign territory, China has embarked on a series of moves to overawe its much smaller neighbors in the Western Pacific and, with the US still pinned down in its fateful Middle East adventures, create a set of facts on the water that the superior US Navy would have to aggressively overturn in order to avoid being boxed out of the region.

Another risk, specifically for China? These moves, taken collectively, may be spurring the formation, at least on a de facto basis, of a new alliance, an "Asia-Pacific Treaty Organization," with the US, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Australia among its core constituents, for the purpose of fending off China's increasingly aggressive moves in the Western Pacific.