Actually, China has a claim to both the Paracels and the Spratleys.
China’s isn’t the only claim, but her claim is a lot better than that of Malaysia, Brunei, etc.
Now that she has a sea-lift ability, what else is to be expected than that she would try and enforce those claims?
It’s only a “crisis” if China finds the going so easy that she comes to think she can expand even beyond her “natural waters”; and not stop until she fines resistance.
(But will she find any real “resistance”?)
Is the Phillipines (which has, IIRC, one ex-US Coast Guard vessel for a navy) expected to resist?
And it’s not just China and not just the South China Sea.
Japan is currently fighting with South Korea about one uninhabited island and with Russia about the Kuril Islands as well. Both have risen all the way to the top of the political food chain on all sides. Tensions are very high all over the Aisa-Pacific region.
Let the countries in the region sort it out. It’s none of our business.
Pei-Ping.
