Story highlights Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is paying a visit to AustraliaSouth China Sea tensions put Australia in a difficult situation, says Sam RoggeveenSam Roggeveen is a Senior Fellow at The Lowy Institute for International Policy, an Australian think tank. (CNN) At the start of his five-day visit to Australia, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told parliamentarians in Canberra that "peace was the most precious thing." Of course, Premier Li insisted in his Canberra speech that China "will never seek dominance." Those who have watched Beijing's aggressive island-building program in the South China Sea may doubt that sentiment, and during Li's visit we are reminded again of the inexorable shift away from American hegemony back to a more contested global order. Even if we take Li at his word, this still leaves open the possibility that China wants to achieve a situation in which no other state is dominant, especially in China's Pacific backyard.

Source: CNN March 25, 2017 01:30 UTC