Is There A Cold War In Asia Over The South China Sea?

Rowan Callick, The Australian: Cold War is becoming a looming reality over the South China Sea

The South China Sea dispute will soon ­either boil over into ­visceral confrontation or pass into ­history, its tensions tapering off as needless distractions.

The response to the imminent ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague “will be the biggest test of the international order since Russia sent troops into Crimea”, says Tom Miller, an analyst at Beijing-based Gavekal Dragonomics.

The five arbitrators have been asked by The Philippines to rule that China’s 2012 occupation of the Scarborough Shoal — a 150sq km triangle of rocks and reefs 200km from Subic Bay and 1000km from China’s Hainan ­Island — is in ­defiance of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

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WNU Editor: Everyone I know in the Far East are telling me the same thing .... that the number one national security concern in Asia right now is the ongoing border disputes in the South China Sea (North Korea is #2). Is this a Cold War? Being one who lived through one I will have to say no. But there is an arms race in East Asia, and I cannot help but feel that if current trends continue a Cold War is going to be the end result.