Poser over South China Sea

THE recent announcement in the China Daily on Beijing’s addition of another lighthouse at the Spratly Islands would inevitably exacerbate the long-standing concerns of the United States that Chinese activity is undermining the international community’s freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

Though China defends its lighthouses as “efforts to safeguard navigation freedom and security”, the prevailing US view has since attached to China an impression contrary to the concepts of “international community” and “freedom of navigation”, i.e. that of territorial hegemony and national monopoly.