regional strategic analysis
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Asia Times · Hong Kong · Closest Scarborough naval encounter in three years as PLAN frigates shadow a Philippine warship
Reads the platform, buoys and coast-guard patrols east of Taiwan as the opening of 'creeping expansionism' at Scarborough — the Mischief Reef playbook, where stilt huts became a 2,600m airstrip — and ties Beijing's reaction to the new Japan–Philippines EEZ-delimitation talks it calls 'illegal and invalid'.
“Observers fear Scarborough is the start of creeping expansionism — the Mischief Reef model, where frail huts on stilts became infrastructure for a 2,600-metre airstrip.”