[quote] For years, China has criticized the surveillance activities of U.S. naval vessels in its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. Now China has begun, in however small a way, to do the same thing off Guam and Hawaii. And, somewhat [b]counter-intuitively[/b], this may prove to be in the interests of peace, stability and security right across Indo-Pacific Asia. ... It is common knowledge that China has long resented and pushed back against the presence of American surveillance ships and aircraft off its coast. China considers this bad for its national interest – after all, the Americans are presumably collecting data on Chinese military activities, among other things. China also presumably sees the ongoing presence as an insult to its national pride, a reminder of a history of [b]humiliation[/b] by foreign powers. ... Of note, the United States has observed over the past year several instances of Chinese naval activities in the EEZs around Guam and Hawaii … While the United States considers the PLA Navy activities in its EEZ to be lawful, the activity undercuts China’s decades-old position that similar foreign military activities in China’s EEZ are unlawful.” [/quote] This is an interesting development, though it is a bit uneasy. While war is unlikely to occur (very, very unlikely, I can never stress this enough), there still exists a small probability of conflict breaking out. Even though EEZ monitoring is perfectly legal, the idea of China gathering more information on the United States military is something I hate, especially when they routinely, and illegally, hack into our defense networks. In any event, this is all indicative of a more aggressive Chinese foreign policy. Thoughts?