BEIJING/TOKYO (Reuters) - As China diplomatically confronts the United States and South Korea over new missile defenses and intensifies pressure on Japan at sea over disputed islets, Beijing is signaling it is prepared to stand its ground on two key regional fronts.
Mainland analysts see little immediate chance for an easing of tensions now roiling across Northeast Asia, saying a rising China is showing it is keen to shape its own battlefield despite fresh threats.
"This action is China saying to the world that it has the ability to fight two regional conflicts on its doorstep," said Ni Lexiong, a naval expert at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. "If [Japan] is actively making provocations in our South China Sea, then in the East China Sea, on its doorway, it will face a little pressure," Ni said.
Beijing's claims to much of the South China Sea were invalidated last month in an emphatic ruling by an arbitration court in The Hague in a case brought by rival claimant, the Philippines.
The region's deepening fault lines after the ruling were exposed at the weekend as a fleet of Chinese coast guard and fishing vessels sailed near Japanese-controlled islets in the East China Sea. Japan warned China on Tuesday ties were "deteriorating markedly."
Tokyo worries that Chinese control of the South China Sea, through which much of the oil it imports is shipped, threatens its national security and takes Beijing a step closer to extending its influence into the Western Pacific.
Japan has cranked up assistance recently to two countries who have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Japan's administration of the disputed islands it calls Senkaku, and China calls Diaoyu, puts them under the long-standing security treaty between Washington and Tokyo.
Kevin Maher, a Washington security consultant and a former head of the State Department's Office of Japan Affairs said he thinks China is trying to warn Japan not to interfere in the South China Sea after Tokyo strongly endorsed the Hague ruling.
China "wants to see how far they can push until they get pushed back," Maher said. "Their ultimate goal is hegemony in the South China Sea and the East China Sea."
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