Special to WorldTribune.com

By Julian Ryall, Telegraph

TOKYO — The People’s Liberation Army, including its navy and air force, will be allowed to “project power” further beyond its borders at sea and more assertively in the air in order to safeguard its [claimed] maritime possessions, [according to a new policy statement by the Chinese Communist Party’s ruling state council]. …

The posture risks escalating the tension over disputed islands in the South China Sea and elsewhere in the Pacific, where the United States is determined to protect the interests of allies like Taiwan and the Philippines. Only last week, a U.S. aircraft ignored repeated warnings from the Chinese military to fly a reconnaissance mission over the islands.

Global Times, a tabloid newspaper run by the Communist Party, said: “If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a U.S.-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea”.

State media reported on Tuesday that Beijing had begun building two lighthouses on reefs in the Spratly Islands, a smattering of outcrops that are claimed by an array of countries including not only China but also Vietnam and the Philippines. Last month, satellite imagery revealed the Chinese had almost completed an air strip on another reef – Fiery Cross – while they are turning another rock, Mischief Reef, into a full island through land reclamation.

Analysts say neither Washington nor Beijing appear to be in the mood to back down and that there is a serious risk of a minor incident in airspace around the islands escalating rapidly. “I think the concern has to be that China misjudges the situation”, said Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at the Japan campus of Temple University. … “I worry whether Beijing considers the US to be a declining power and assumes that Washington will back down if it shoots down a US observation aircraft”.

Washington chose to “de-escalate” a major crisis that blew up after a Chinese fighter collided with a US Navy intelligence-gathering aircraft off Hainan Island in April 2001. However, Prof. Dujarric said there would be a different response if a similar incident were to occur in what Washington insists is international air space over the South China Sea.

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  China threatens ‘inevitable war’ unless U.S. drops objections to its maritime ‘activities’, LIFE, WorldTribune.com