Published Date:
05-Nov-2011
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President Hu Jintao has presented himself as a "friend in need" during encounters with European supplicants while stopping short, for now, of committing China to a specific contribution.

But China has been showing a very different face to countries closer to home in an increasingly tense confrontation over rival claims to the resource-rich waters of the South China Sea.

It is a region where the peaceful nature of China's rise is starting to be questioned as it pushes a long-standing maritime claim that stretches deep into South East Asia.

"China is becoming much more confident in the region and there are signs it is becoming giddy with success. It has become much more influential much more quickly than it expected," says Dr Kerry Brown of the Asia Programme at Chatham House in London.

Vietnam and the Philippines in recent months have seen the snarl of a resurgent regional power that is fast losing patience with the gripes of smaller neighbours over maritime borders.

"If these countries do not want to change their ways with China, they will need to prepare for the sound of cannons. It may be the only way for the dispute in the sea to be resolved," said the state run newspaper, the Global Times, in a recent editorial.

Hard power

Chinese officials have been more restrained in their comments, but foreign ministry spokesmen have issued a series of warnings about what they see as encroachments into Chinese waters.

Beijing says it does want a peaceful solution. But Vietnam and the Philippines say Chinese ships have stepped up harassment of vessels involved in oil exploration and fishing.

"The growth of Chinese military spending is beginning to translate into hard power," says John Hemmings, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute.

"This is the first major sign that a more confident Chinese grand strategy is emerging. It is in the South China Sea that there is a real risk of discord between the US and China."

The disputes are about oil and gas reserves, lucrative fisheries and sea lanes that are crucial to the giant industrial economies of East Asia. But they also point to a strategic contest with the United States, which has been the dominant military power in the western Pacific since 1945.