BEIJING: China’s campaign of confrontation, from remote reefs in Southeast Asia to Taiwan and far-flung Japanese islands, is designed to wear down regional rivals competing with it for contested territories, analysts say.
Beijing in recent years has asserted its claims in the long-running disputes far more boldly as its military strength has grown.
The escalating actions — over islands in the East China Sea claimed by Japan, the self-ruled territory of Taiwan and the South China Sea — have also come as Beijing’s rivals have drawn closer to the United States.
“(China) believes its strong-arm tactics are paying dividends,” Duan Dang, a Vietnam-based maritime security analyst, told AFP.
China has in recent months deployed military and coast guard vessels in a bid to eject the Philippines from a trio of strategically important reefs and islands in the South China Sea.
“The number of fronts where an accident could spiral suddenly is very real,” Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, told AFP.
The latest flashpoint is Sabina Shoal, just 140 kilometers (86 miles) west of the Philippine island of Palawan and roughly 1,200 kilometers from China’s nearest major landmass, the island of Hainan.
On Monday, Beijing said it took “control measures” against two Philippine Coast Guard ships that “illegally” entered the waters near Sabina Shoal.
Manila countered that Chinese vessels had stopped Philippine ships from resupplying their own coast guard vessels in the area — slamming Beijing as the “biggest disruptor” to regional peace.

China has for years sought to expand its power in the South China Sea, brushing aside an international ruling that its claim to most of the waterway has no legal basis.
It has built artificial islands armed with missile systems and runways for fighter jets, and deployed vessels that the Philippines says harass its ships and block its fishers.
In 2012, Beijing seized control of Scarborough Shoal, another contested area close to the Philippines.
And in June, Chinese coast guard personnel brandishing weapons boarded Philippine vessels near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, a confrontation in which Manila said one of its sailors lost a thumb.
The recent incidents have come as the Philippines has strengthened ties with traditional ally the United States, with which it has a mutual defense treaty.
Duan said the pact might “deter outright war,” but Beijing still saw a chance to tighten the screws on Manila while Washington was distracted by the ongoing Middle East conflict and the uncertainties around its own presidential election in November.
However the Philippines on Thursday flagged the possibility of US escorts for its resupply missions.
Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore (NUS), told AFP China was trying to “wear down” Filipino resolve.
Beijing is posing a “direct challenge to the Philippines’ ability to administer and make use of its exclusive economic zone,” he said.
They are “trying to push the envelope (but stay) below the threshold of aggression,” he explained.
“They don’t want to lose control of the escalation.”

China’s recent assertiveness has extended far beyond the South China Sea.
Around Taiwan, it has sent increasing numbers of fighter jets, drones and naval vessels as part of a strategy that analysts say is designed to keep the democratic island exhaustingly vigilant against a possible invasion.
Beijing says Taiwan is part of its territory and has refused to rule out using force to unify with it.
China has also in recent years ratcheted up pressure over a disputed island group controlled by Japan in the East China Sea.
Tokyo in June protested after four Chinese vessels that were believed to be armed approached the islands, known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan.
And this week Japan said a Chinese military plane flew into its airspace for the first time, a “serious violation” of its sovereignty.
Beijing has not admitted the incursion near the uninhabited Danjo Islands — uncontestedly Japanese territory — but has said it would have been unintentional.
However, analysts said it may have deliberately aimed to probe Japan’s air defense network and collect electronic intelligence.
“People sometimes look at the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea... as isolated,” said Chong, of NUS.
“They are not. These are all areas where (China) hopes to be able to establish more control,” he said.
“They’re trying to see how far they can push.”

WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Saturday that her Republican rival Donald Trump “disrespected sacred ground” at a US military cemetery during a contentious pre-election visit.
Trump’s presence at the hallowed Arlington National Cemetery — intended to provide a campaign boost ahead of the November 5 vote — has instead mushroomed into a public dispute consuming the candidates and the military.
In Monday’s incident at the cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington, Trump broke rules barring photography for political purposes, posing with relatives of US service members killed in Afghanistan in content that was later shared by his campaign on social media.
“Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” Harris said.
In one image, he is standing with family members of a fallen Marine, posing among headstones while grinning broadly and giving a thumbs-up.
“If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude,” Harris wrote on X.

On Thursday, the US Army issued a rare statement confirming that a cemetery staff member had been “abruptly pushed aside” after asking Trump’s team to stop filming in a burial section for those killed in recent wars, where photography for political purposes is banned.
Trump’s campaign team has gone on the offensive by describing the employee as a “despicable individual” and claiming she was suffering a mental health episode.
But the military said the staff member had “acted with professionalism” and it condemned the incident as “unfortunate.”
Trump spoke at length at a rally Friday night about the cemetery incident and Afghanistan and said it was families of fallen troops who asked to have their picture taken with him.
“I said ‘Absolutely.’ I wasn’t doing it for — I don’t need publicity, I get a lot of publicity. I would like to get a lot less publicity,” Trump said in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Trump blamed the White House for the criticism he is drawing.
“Joe Biden killed those young people because he was incompetent. And then they tell me that I used their graves for public relations purposes. And I didn’t. And I’ll tell you what, it was a disgrace,” Trump said.
Trump has made criticism of the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the US retreat from Afghanistan a keynote of his campaign, arguing that he would have managed it better.
He visited the cemetery with families of some of the 13 service members killed in a 2021 bombing in Kabul during the last, chaotic hours of the US withdrawal.
Trump’s relationship with the military has long spawned controversy.
While often touting his support for the armed forces, he privately mocked the war dead while he was president and did not want to be seen near military amputees, according to his former chief of staff.

Harris’s blunt response Saturday appeared to underline her determination to take the fight directly to Trump in what is shaping up to be a bruising presidential election.
Trump has repeatedly mocked Harris’s name, intelligence, appearance and racial identity, while the Harris campaign has replied that the former president is “weird,” an aspiring dictator, and “out of his mind.”
Harris earlier faced withering criticism over the cemetery incident from Trump’s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance.
Apparently responding to a mistaken report that Harris had already reacted to the visit, Vance accused her of feigning outrage and said, “She can go to hell.”
“Don’t focus on Donald Trump showing up to grieve with some people who lost their children. Focus on your own job. Don’t do this fake outrage thing,” he later told the Washington Post.
At that point Harris had not publicly mentioned the cemetery visit.
Kevin Carroll, who served as a senior aide to Trump’s homeland security chief John Kelly, voiced scathing criticism of Trump’s behavior in an opinion piece published Friday in The Guardian newspaper.
“The photo of a grinning Trump giving a jaunty thumbs-up over these patriots’ graves is an indelible image of narcissism risen to the point of sociopathy,” Carroll wrote.