Conflicting claims over the sea don’t have to degenerate into open hostility.
On Oct. 27 the simmering waters of the South China Sea came to a slow boil. A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Lassen, conducted a freedom-of-navigation cruise within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese-built artificial island in the Spratly archipelago. The Chinese government vowed to “firmly react to this deliberate provocation.”
There’s a scenario in which gunboat diplomacy degenerates into outright hostilities. Ships bump, planes collide, shots are fired. Sailors and airmen die. Carefully cultivated diplomatic relations unravel, and commerce and investment between the world’s two biggest economies break down. Read more
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