America's message: time to pick sides in the South China Sea
2018-10-07 09:28:13 source：The South China Morning Post
October 6, 2018
Chinese leaders may have been US Vice-President Mike Pence’s main target audience this week as he issued Washington’s most blistering broadside on Beijing in recent years, but analysts say there was also a message for regional countries caught up in the proxy battle for supremacy between the two juggernauts in the disputed South China Sea: pick your side.
The address – which immediately drew fire from China for its “unwarranted accusations” – suggests that President Donald Trump’s administration is on the brink of intensifying the ongoing trade war between the countries into a more broad-based cold war-esque confrontation, they say.
In such a scenario, China’s neighbours, from Vietnam to Malaysia and Singapore, may be cajoled into taking sides after years of delicately balancing their relationships with both superpowers.
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