U.S. Gunboat Diplomacy Will Only Embolden China
Trump's aggression in Latin America has given a powerful boost to Beijing in the Pacific.
In recent decades, China has adopted a muscular approach to the Pacific Ocean, prompting other countries to sound the alarm over its pushy new attitude toward the region.
China's tactics, including building artificial islands from dredged sand for use as military outposts, have been novel, despite employing a largely discredited maritime strategy used by Western powers a century earlier.
Beijing has pressed legally and historically dubious claims to outright ownership of nearly all of the South China Sea.
As China seemed to be adopting a bygone and largely discredited maritime strategy employed a century earlier by Western powers, many of its tactics were novel.
Author's summary: Trump's aggression boosts China in the Pacific.