Time to turn Asean’s Indo-Pacific initiative into security dialogue

The Arleigh-Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) conducting an operation in the South China Sea in 2020. – AFP

THE most disturbing aspect of the growing militarisation of the South China Sea these past few years is that the pace is picking up so rapidly that, unless someone puts a stop to it now, we could soon come to a frightening situation of who is going to blink first.

Currently, the emerging cold war between China and the United States is being fought in part, if not primarily, in these strategic international waters.