At a time when the second wave of coronavirus is decimating the world economy, when the Caucasus is smouldering from the consequences of the Karabakh issue and all the protracted Middle Eastern conflicts are continuing to drag the region into political obsolescence, the last thing we needed was a flareup with regard to the South China Sea. Territorial disputes in China’s maritime underbelly are by no means a novelty – just think of the Paracel and Spratly Islands or the Scarborough shoal, China has managed to have simultaneous arguments with Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. Now, however, the initiative is coming from the Philippines, desperate to kickstart their gas production.
