What does China’s want?

One reason why China’s spectacular rise sometimes

alarms its neighbors is that from the Himalayas to
the sea it claims territory it does not control in the
West China’s border dispute with India is more than
a minor cartographic tiff China claims an area of
India that is twice the size of Switzerland the state
of Arunachal Pradesh for the West China occupies
Indian claim territory next to Kashmir in 1962 China
won a brief war over the dispute now however a
more immediately dangerous standoff is the one
between China and Japan over disputed islands in
the East China Sea known as Senkaku in Japan and
the D ru in China the surrounding seas may be rich in
oil and gas which Japan says provoked China’s
interest Japan say’s they’ve always been its territory
a new and much more dangerous phase of the
dispute began in 2012 after Japan’s government
nationalized three of the islands by buying the from
their private owner infuriated China’s since then has
been sending it ships and planes close to the islands
now challenging even Japan’s ally America has
confirmed that its security guarantee does cover the
islands Athan japan were especially provoked by
China’s unilateral announcement in November 2013
of an air identification zone covering the islands the
worry is less of a deliberate war than an accidental
collision at sea or in the air might escalate similar
fears cloud the disputes in the South China Sea
where the maritime claims in Southeast Asia even
more complex and again competition is made more
intense by speculation wealth in hydrocarbons in
May 2014 China moved a massive oil rig to drill for
two months near the Paracel Islands in waters
claimed by Vietnam China has an expanding Navy
and projects power from the its submarine base on
Hainan to the South China and also claimed the
Spratly archipelago as does Taiwan who claimed in
the see mirrors China’s but the Philippines also

Has a substantial claim Malaysia and even tiny

Brunei have an interest too in 1995 China evicted the
Philippines from mischief reef and 2012 from
Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines accuses
China of salami slicing tactics stealthily expanding
its presence in disputed waters in March 2014 it
tried to stop the Philippines from resupplying a small
garrison it maintains on the second Thomas shoal
since then it has appeared to be building an airship
on the Johnson South reef apparently ignoring
international law China and Taiwan point to a map
from the 1940’s showing a big u-shaped nine dashed
line around the edge of the sea all China’s fury is
challenging this at a UN tribunal a huge chunk of
global trade on almost 1/3 of Seabourn crude oil
passes through the South China Sea so these
uncertainties worry America as well as countries
nearby the status of Taiwan is also still unresolved
in practice it has been independent since 1949 but
China still insists that one day it must accept
Chinese sovereignty polls suggest that few in
Taiwan are in any hurry for that day to come China
has never announced the use of force against
Taiwan if necessary and has hundreds of missiles on
its coast trained on the island no one is asking the
Tibetans in China’s West or the Largely Muslim we
Gers of the neighboring region of sin junk whether
they want to be part of China but many of them
certainly hanker after independence that is one
reason why China cannot show weakness on what it
sees as issues of national sovereignty its
expansionists dreams are haunted by separatist
nightmares