Aside from failing to provide any meaningful support to curb North Korea’s destabilizing nuclear weapons programs, China continues with its bullying and aggressive tactics to advance its totalitarian control of both the South and East China Seas. China’s claims to nearly all of the South China Sea clash with those of Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei ? but only China is trying to impose control on the whole region.

China unilaterally has reclaimed over 3,000 acres of land from submerged rocks and shoal water in this international waterway. They have built three airfields of approximately 10,000 feet in length and have fortified their man-made islands with anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems. These man-made islands have, in fact, become stationary “aircraft carriers” with hangers for up to 26 fighter attack aircraft, posing a direct threat to smaller islands held by Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines, and threatening the larger Philippine island of Palawan.

What’s clear in all of its provocative actions is that China has accepted the risk of escalation more than the U.S. because China uses confrontation as a means to alter the status quo in its favor. In his January 24 article in The National Interest, Gordon Chang makes the case that China wants more than just to provoke a confrontation in the South China Sea, it actually wants to pull the trigger.

We must keep in mind that China may want to win without fighting, but it cannot win without a confrontation. One other fact we must keep in mind when we plan our operations according to Maochun Yu of the United States Naval Academy, history has proven time and again, that when China feels that a confrontation will not have desirable consequence, China will not want the confrontation. This is key.