US-China tensions rise over Beijing’s ‘Great Wall of Sand’

Every year the Shangri-La Dialogue, organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) brings together everyone who is anyone in Asia-Pacific defence circles “to take the temperature” – as IISS director general John Chipman puts it – of security developments in the region.
This year, once again, US-China tensions are centre stage.
Beijing’s efforts to create new facts on the ground have been termed by some as an attempt to construct a “Great Wall of Sand” to delineate the boundary of China’s interests – a reference to the ancient Great Wall that guarded China’s frontier.
Mr Chipman says: “In both the State Department and the Pentagon, we are seeing real concern about Chinese activities in the South China Sea but also about some of the activities of other claimant states who have sometimes sought to make the areas they feel able to control more habitable or to build facilities on them.”

 

Read More: US-China tensions rise over Beijing’s ‘Great Wall of Sand’ – BBC News