Xi's Golden Opportunity To Be The Bigger Person In The South China Sea Row

China's ambitions for regional leadership face one obstacle of its own making — its heavy-handed actions in the disputed waters.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

All week last week, the anti-China hawks of the world must have been stewing as they cast an evil eye on President Xi Jinping's three-nation South-east Asian tour. There they were, immobilized by Washington's tariff madness, forced to watch the Chinese leader's charm offensive proceed practically without a hitch, hitting all the right diplomatic notes.

Their protestations that China is no adult in the room would have fallen flat given how deeply Mr Xi's message of amity resonated with his hosts.

In Vietnam, he condemned "unilateral bullying"; in Malaysia, he bemoaned "shocks to global order and economic globalization"; and in Cambodia, he decried "hegemony, power politics and bloc confrontation."

Mr Xi struck dozens of deals with each of the three countries — some more nebulous than others, but all demonstrating to South-east Asia that its biggest trading partner was reliable and responsible, especially against the backdrop of US President Donald Trump's ongoing grand caper. But alas, the mood soured over the weekend. The Philippines and China sniped at each other over provocations in the disputed South China Sea — this time near Scarborough Shoal, within the Philippines' 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

The China baiters found a second wind. But, more importantly, this latest face-off serves as a marker of something more fundamental: all the statesmanship in the world cannot remove the thorn that the sea dispute — and Beijing's maximalist, aggressive approach to asserting its claims — places on its relations with South-east Asian neighbours.

ASSUAGING ANXIETIES A meeting of China's leadership on ties with neighbouring countries on the eve of Mr Xi's tour noted that these relationships were "at their best" — but that sepia-tinted conclusion disregards this very strain at precisely the moment when Beijing should be capitalising on America's retrograde stance in the region to cement its status as elder statesman.