Can a market-based plan for energy infrastructure provide peace and prosperity in the South China Sea? Stewart Taggart, a former financial journalist, examines recent tensions and describes how creating Joint Development Areas could boost cooperation and mutual trust.

Regional tensions in Asia have precipitously increased as disputes in the South China Sea continue to grow. While Zhai Kun notes that the current escalation is controllable, future conflicts cannot be ruled out.

The Vietnamese government has gone back on its word by making territorial claims for China’s Xisha Islands. Lu Yang believes that it is a violation of the principles of international law.

While borrowing Chinese President Xi's hope that the United States would take into consideration the Chinese perspective when it comes to territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas, Wang Dong criticizes widely spread US misperception and misunderstanding of China's foreign policy behavior, and argues that the absence of the Chinese perspective may have led to much of the misreading of China’s behavior.

In light of China’s deployment of a mega oilrig in waters that Vietnam considers part of its Exclusive Economic Zone, Carlyle A. Thayer analyses what amounts to an unexpected provocation of Vietnam by China.

Following this year’s Shangri-la Dialogue, Alessio Patalano examines U.S. and Japanese tensions with China, provides insight into China’s current disputes in the East and South China Seas, and recommends a policy of engagement to create a more effective security environment in East Asia.

China supports international norms and abides by international law; however, it is also justified in advancing legitimate sovereign interests. As in the case of the US during the Cold War, when armed forces were deployed on Taiwan or when the US instituted an ADIZ, it is appropriate for China to promote international law unless sovereign interests are at stake.

As John Ciorciari and Jessica Chen Weiss explain, relations between China and Vietnam have plummeted to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War following a row over disputed territory in the South China Sea.

China has never regarded the South China Sea in its totality as China's territorial waters. Nor will China seek to turn the South China Sea into a "Chinese lake", writes Wu Shicun.

While nations in the international community, especially Japan, Australia, and the United States, rushed to provide generous relief aid to the Philippines in the aftermath of devastating Typhoon Haiyan, China’s response has been noticeably different.