Storm clouds continue to gather in East Asia and the South China Sea.
No one can be in any doubt now that China and the United States see each other as strategic rivals and are engaged in a geopolitical contest across the full spectrum of interstate relations. Whether the contest is viewed as one for primacy, parity or a new equilibrium of shared strategic space in the Pacific, the reality is the contest has been joined.
It is just as indisputable that the political, military, economic and even psychological balance of power has been shifting relentlessly to China’s net benefit and many Indo-Pacific countries have accommodated to this new normal.