When U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter spoke at a key Asian security summit over the weekend, he used the word "principled" 38 times, floating his vision of a U.S.-backed "security network" of countries in the region.
Several delegations were quick to respond to the idea at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, but it seemed to evolve into a form of diplomatic tag-team wrestling as a loose coalition of nations lined up to criticize China.
Nations including Japan, India, France and Vietnam joined calls for greater respect for international law to resolve the worsening territorial tensions in the South China Sea, a dig at Beijing, which has said it will not accept any ruling by a U.N.-backed court on the dispute.