Wait until after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party. What’s in store for the hotly disputed, resource-rich South China Sea, where Beijing has taken a military and technological lead since 2010? Whatever emerges from the Congress, Beijing will probably continue to pressure on four Southeast Asian countries with rival South China Sea claims, on Japan because of an East China Sea sovereignty dispute and on India due to unsettled border issues. Expect more coordination by Beijing on the South China Sea, says Jinghan Zeng, senior politics and international relations lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London. The country’s own economy, worth more than $11.2 trillion, influences the rest of the world even without belts and roads.

Source: Forbes October 04, 2017 22:00 UTC