China’s territorial disputes with its maritime neighbors have become the most contentious and high-profile elements in Beijing’s regional foreign policy—so much so that they overshadow and complicate other dimensions of its relations with the region. These quarrels have deep historical roots and have produced periodic crises and occasional clashes since the 1970s. But they have taken on new prominence and significance during the last several years as tensions with rival claimants have escalated and remained relatively high, decimating the diplomatic gains Beijing had achieved through a “charm offensive,” efforts to cultivate “soft power,” and the vestiges of an obsolescent policy of “hiding brightness and nourishing obscurity” (taoguang yanghui). With China’s dramatic rise as a regional great power and incipient superpower, its perceived aggressiveness has inevitably been more alarming to the region’s lesser powers.

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