Wow, I knew China is throwing its weight around internationally but had not heard about this sort of localized aggression. China may have its internal problems with its economy but it's not slowing down their expansionist behavior in partnership with Russia and Iran.

It is slowing down now, it's been going on for some time. Remember the belt and road initiative? That was part of it - but they've made great headway in Africa by "debt trap diplomacy". In Sri Lanka the Chinese built ports and a large international airport all on contracts signed by the Government. Sri Lank couldn't hope to pay for it, so the Chinese administer it and parts of the ports are theirs. They've built a series of ports the Indians refer to as the String of Pearls, some in the Malaca Straight, through Sri Lanka, and Gwadar Port in Pakistan. Building the raods and other infrastructure have many of those countries in debt.

Remember the Asian Pivot under Obama? That was the beginning. We helped the Philippines go to the International Court and establish their EEZ, and we got the Phils to establish a base where the Chinese planned to build the third set of island, preventing the Chinese from sealing the area off.

We helped Japan with the TPP, which we needed to establish a partnership alliance for trade that didn't include China. china finally alienated Duterte so we got access to bases and with Bong Boing we are suing the Northern Phil islands to establish a defense perimeter so we can protect the back side of Taiwan. Japan is working on the Senkaku islands. We have an alliance between India, Australia, the UK and the US to hem China in. India no like China, (land disputes up in the mountains bordering China with shot fired) Nepal has problems with China, but the buy from Russia.

China is building a tunnel through the mountains in Tibet to tap into the water source for the Ganges river. China is building dams on the rivers that flow into Vietnam, etc.,

< The West seems to be losing this contest and has been for quite some time. What is going to stop them?

I will tell you one thing, idiot child Trump pulled out of the TPP and set us waaaay back. Now the TPP has been renegotiated and China has applied to join. This whole isolationist approach works against us. We shoot ourselves in the foot.