Hundreds of miles away from the scene of the current Sino-Indian dispute lies another perpetual theatre of war where China is a permanent player — the South China Sea, where tiffs over competing claims frequently degenerate into maritime muscle-flexing.
China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei all lay claims to these waters. Rival countries have wrangled over territory in the South China Sea for centuries, but tension has steadily increased in recent years following…