What Beijing's surge in the South China Sea means
Five years after Beijing began reshaping the South China Sea to suit its interests in the teeth of international opposition, China has all but taken control of the vital waterway.
China’s success in asserting an unbreakable strategic grip on the South China Sea through the creation of militarized artificial islands brings it another step closer to its ultimate goal: supplanting the United States as the preeminent power in Asia and the Pacific.
That goal may still be a distant one, many analysts say; the US Navy is still much larger than China’s, to say nothing of Washington’s network of
Mine, all mineHigh-stakes arm wrestling
