Claiming dominance, China sheds pretence of peaceful rise

Hong Kong

THERE was a time China tried hard to convince the world that its rise is peaceful. That pretence was dropped seven years ago, when, in the wake of the Great Recession, it thought its time had come to claim its place as controlling "all under heaven", or tianxia in Asia. Its emergence, as with that of all great powers in history, marked not just by military expansion, but also assertion of its own law.

In China's narrative, the rise is still peaceful. The nation built military installations on reefs and rocks in the South China Sea simply because it claims to own them from time immemorial. As Hu Shijin, editor-in-chief of Global Times, told Quartz in a recent interview: "We can't lose these islands."