CHINA CONTINUES TO RAISE TENSIONS IN ASIA

China took additional aggressive steps this week all of which served to keep political tension high between it and its neighbors.

(1) China sent three vessels into an area of the East China Sea that contains an island group occupied by Japan, but which china says it has "indisputable sovereignty."

(2) At this weeks important ASEAN Conference in Cambodia, China sought to suppress any discussion of the ongoing South China Sea territorial disputes it has ratcheted up lately with the Philippines and Vietnam, including making progress on drafting a Code of Conduct for countries that border this geopolitical waterway, and its island groups.

(3) China has announced that it will, for the first time, place fighter aircraft at a strategic airfield in Tibet, in wintertime. It is also using surveillance and tracking radars to acquire intelligence from India.

I do not know where all of this is going; but China has succeeded in increasing regional risk, and it will not diminish until and unless these hostile actions cease. The world does not need another inconclusive China-India or China-Vietnam military conflict, or the threat of same, which will raise country risk.