What is a “lake” in maritime strategy? Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe published an op-ed in Project Syndicate last week maintaining that Chinese power is increasingly transfiguring the South China Sea into “Lake Beijing.” That sounds ominous. To counteract China’s primacy in southern waters, argues Abe, Japan must augment its combat and police capabilities while forging a “diamond” with the United States, Australia, and India to defend the commons in East and South Asia. That sounds like a multinational lake presided over by the region’s leading liberal republics. Presumably the European equivalent would be NATO trusteeship over the Mediterranean Sea.

The idea of a lake has a long provenance. Many moons ago, while researching Alfred Thayer Mahan’s influence in Imperial Germany, I stumbled across a 1907 issue of National Geographic that exuded triumphalism. The normally staid magazine ran a map showing American flags scattered all across the Pacific basin, from Hawaii to the Philippine Islands. The flags depicted the islands wrested from Spain in 1898. The caption proudly proclaimed that the Pacific Ocean was—and would remain—“an American Ocean.” And so it was. Writing a century later, pundit Robert Kaplan maintained that the Pacific has been “a veritable American naval lake” since World War II.

By no means is the United States the first seagoing state to declare this or that body of water its own. In the 1950s Indian sea-power proponent K. B. Vaidya declared that the “Indian Ocean must become an Indian Lake” guarded by forward-deployed eastern, southern, and western fleets. A vibrant oceangoing navy would work some alchemy, transforming inward-looking India into the “supreme and undisputed” master of regional waters.

But again, what precisely do sea-power enthusiasts mean when they deem some expanse a lake belonging to some seafaring nation? A lake must have geographic, military, and political components. Geography provides the arena within which nations play out their destinies. Strength, as Clausewitz defines it, is a product of force and resolve.

Let’s break the concept down. First, designating a compact or enclosed sea a national lake is one thing. Declaring de facto supremacy over the world’s largest ocean, as National Geographic did on America’s behalf, borders on hubris. Boundless ambition begets strategic overextension and all of the maladies it entails. That’s what Walter Lippmann meant when he accused interwar American administrations of “monstrous imprudence” for letting Asia-Pacific commitments outstrip naval means.

Second, claiming a lake means commanding the waters within in the Mahanian sense. Mahan famously portrayed maritime command as amassing “overbearing power” to drive enemy fleets from vital waters in wartime. Peacetime command means fielding a force able to overawe and overshadow rival fleets—opening up vistas for deterrence, coercion, and confident naval diplomacy of all varieties. That’s a high standard to meet. And the bigger the lake, the higher the standard.

And third, there’s the question of political resolve or, more accurately, political intentions. For what purpose does a seafaring nation claim a lake for itself? There’s no obvious general rule implicit within the concept. Power is a neutral thing. A nautical suzerain can be benign and self-denying, as I believe the United States has been since 1945 and India will be once it consummates its naval project. Few stay up nights worrying about the U.S. or Indian naval juggernauts’ trampling their interests.

But power can be abused. That seems to be Prime Minister Abe’s message vis-à-vis China. Abe frets that Beijing will misuse its naval might within Lake Beijing, to the detriment of Japan and other seagoing nations. It cannot be trusted to use its power responsibly. Chinese leaders have done little to allay such concerns. Just the opposite.

The concept of a lake isn’t a bad yardstick for measuring Chinese sea power. Is Beijing indeed intent on primacy in the South China Sea and other expanses, to the extent of seeing them as Chinese lakes? Does it possess sufficient naval and military power to make itself the master of the waters within? How large a margin of superiority can the PLA amass in the face of regional competitors? And to what uses would Beijing put its marine primacy once achieved?

Food for thought.

Is it true that the United States, India, and other outsiders harbor no territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea?

Not strictly.

That may be what official policy says, and the motives behind such self-denying statements are doubtless sincere. Washington and other stakeholders have no claims to land features, the waters immediately adjoining them, or the airspace above. But here’s the rub. Every seafaring nation has a territorial claim to regional waters and skies beyond the 12-nautical-mile limit prescribed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. These expanses belong to no one, and everyone.

Beijing defines offshore waters as “blue national soil.” If that’s more than a catchy phrase, it envisions exercising the absolute territorial sovereignty at sea that governments exercise within their land frontiers. It would reserve the right to infringe on freedom of navigation. (And yes, of course there are a few other outliers that make similar claims. But they’re too weak to pose more than a nuisance.) By custom and international covenant, the global commons belongs to no one. It is blue international soil, open to unfettered commercial and military use by all nations and off-limits to ownership by any.

The commons must remain the commons, lest the system of liberal trade and commerce collapse on itself. All nations have an interest in preventing any contender from fencing off parts of the maritime domain.

What can guardians of free navigation do about this challenge? Channeling Clausewitz, Sir Julian Corbett would describe this as a contest of negative object, an endeavor aimed at keeping an adversary from taking something. In wartime, negative aims bestow certain advantages on the defender, who mostly wants to frustrate his opponent. But the advantages of protecting the status quo are less pronounced in peacetime strategic competition. In fact, the initiative and passion probably go to the antagonist entertaining a positive aim—the antagonist intent on wresting something away. He has the incentive to amend or overturn what looks like an unjust state of affairs. Otherwise he would never have opened the struggle in the first place.

And perhaps most critically, it’s hard for custodians of the status quo to turn the tables, seizing the offensive in peacetime competition. Corbett proclaims that “true defensive” is not passive defense—parrying an enemy’s blows without seeking offensive action—but biding one’s time while awaiting a chance to strike. That idea is readily intelligible in wartime. A combatant waging “active defense” looks for opportunities to use his forces to land a heavy counterpunch. The process isn’t so straightforward in peace. If Beijing keeps asserting title to the waters and airspace within the nine-dashed line, for instance, and if it deploys ships and aircraft to uphold its claim, what precisely would be the equivalent to a wartime counterattack?

It will take some artistry. Persuading seagoing nations to make common cause would be immensely helpful from a diplomatic standpoint. Easier said than done, I know. Or, appealing to international tribunals would provide little immediate relief, since it’s doubtful Beijing would ever allow foreign magistrates to adjudicate the limits of Chinese sovereignty. Still, making the attempt would brand it an international scofflaw.

Reinvigorating and stepping up freedom-of-navigation operations in disputed waters would put steel behind the international community’s defiance while mounting a sustained presence on blue international soil. Multinational task forces could ply regional waters, ostentatiously conducting lawful functions—flight operations, underwater surveys—that Beijing has tried to proscribe. In effect the seafaring states would dare China to take on the entire world.

And using the media creatively when encounters on the high seas turn ugly would help throw China on the defensive. Why not splash footage all over the Internet, social media, and other outlets the next time an Impeccable incident occurs, along with some helpful commentary to put the incident in perspective—depicting it as the affront to the common good that it is? The ghost of Corbett might smile.

Wired’s Spencer Ackerman reports on the Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vehicle (ACTUV), a futuristic unmanned surface ship equipped to track enemy submarines over long spaces of time. Defense contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) is developing the concept under a $58 million contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is the government body charged with pursuing exotic new technology.

If the concept works out as designed — and show me the money! remains the prudent attitude toward concepts in their infancy — these surface craft will boast the capacity to maintain contact with nuclear or even silent diesel-electric submarines operating underwater. Once vectored toward a contact by one of the U.S. Navy’s new P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft, the ACTUV would possess sufficient endurance and autonomy to cling to it for up to ninety days. Indeed, Ackerman implies that SAIC is designing its drone to follow a boat back to its homeport. The only obvious drawback is that the craft will be unarmed — and thus unable to prosecute engagements without help from other surface or air assets.

That’s heady stuff. Flotillas of low-cost drones able to hunt submarines for operationally significant intervals, and to do so without breaking contact, would help nullify the undersea component of the anti-access defenses erected by the Chinas and Irans of the world. It would also start turning the logic of anti-access against its users. Anti-access is a variety of what late cold warriors called “competitive strategies.” Practitioners of competitive strategy search out inexpensive weaponry, hardware, and methods. Their goal is to impose outsized costs on strategic competitors — compelling them to spend lavishly on countermeasures. Ultimately the competition proves unaffordable, or at least forces the adversary to divert resources from pressing priorities. It misshapes and enfeebles his strategy to our advantage.

The ACTUV is part of an “interaction game,” the term we use around our department to describe the intellectual and material one-upsmanship by which competitors jockey for strategic advantage. There are other ways to win than to defeat an adversary outright. As Clausewitz notes, you can also convince him he can’t win, or that he can’t win at an acceptable price. If the U.S. Navy can negate inexpensive fleets of diesel-electric boats primed to contest its access into Asian waters, it will have taken major strides in the right direction. And if it can display that capability convincingly in peacetime, it may not need to fight for access to important theaters.

Stay tuned.

Ernest Hemingway is the first serious literary figure whose work I genuinely liked, as opposed to being forced to read it in high school or college. As it happens, two nautical-themed biographies of Hemingway have seen print over the past three years. Both are excellent reads. One bears directly on sea power. Hemingway’s Boat, by Paul Hendrickson, uses the writer’s 38-foot fishing boat Pilar as the organizing device for a work recounting the years from his purchase of Pilar in 1934 until his suicide in 1961. The book is an elegy, tracing the author’s slow descent from the zenith of his fame to relative obscurity, despair, and darkness. Seafaring is a constant in Hendrikson’s account.

The Hemingway Patrols, by Terry Mort, narrows the aperture to Hemingway’s little-known hunt for German submarines in the Caribbean following American entry into World War II. After Berlin declared war on the United States, U-boat skippers swiftly extended their patrol grounds to the North American east coast, and then to the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. Hemingway had developed an abiding hatred for fascism while traveling in Spain during that nation’s civil war (1936-1939), when Hitler’s regime supported General Francisco Franco militarily. And the author was living in Havana at the outbreak of World War II. Cuban geography granted him easy access to the Gulf Stream for sport fishing -- and for anti-submarine warfare.

Undertaking this seemingly mad quest thus appeared natural. Accordingly, Hemingway signed on as a U.S. Navy auxiliary during the U-boats’ “happy time,” when German subs based in France rampaged against a navy and merchant fleet that proved woefully slow to take countermeasures. The Straits of Florida, along the Cuban north coast, offered the shortest, most fuel-efficient passage from Atlantic waters into America’s inland sea.

Armed only with grenades and small arms, Hemingway and a band of seagoing brothers operated out of Cuba, hunting not just for submarines but for fuel dumps rumored to be dotted around the Caribbean basin to support German cruises. In those days, long before the advent of naval nuclear propulsion or air-independent propulsion, amateurs stood at least some chance of catching a U-boat unawares. Rudimentary technology compelled submarines to spend substantial intervals on the surface, ventilating their interiors with fresh air while recharging the batteries used to drive electric propulsion motors while submerged.

But what would the wooden-hulled Pilar’s crew have actually done had they sighted a steel-hulled German boat boasting far heavier armament and a bigger crew? Hemingway’s tactical vision was on the vague side -- at best.

From Sophocles and Pericles during the Peloponnesian War to Hemingway and George Orwell during the Spanish Civil War, literary and cultural figures have made a point of taking part in great events, or at least witnessing them firsthand. The life of Hemingway, moreover, reminds us that there are innumerable ways to organize navies. Combining public and private assets is common practice. Coastal states are apt to resort to such measures in desperate days like the U-boats’ happy time. For a quixotic tale of maritime derring-do, scope out The Hemingway Patrols.

The habit of lumping together groups of people -- often furriners, but not always -- into an undifferentiated mass is one of the Naval Diplomat’s pet peeves. There is no “the Chinese,” “the Japanese,” or other groups whose members all purportedly think alike. A related, and perhaps even more baleful habit is assuming that enemies are uniformly wicked. Which brings us to a new book about World War II from co-authors Adam Makos and Larry Alexander. (Thanks to my amphibian pal Commander Salamander for the tip.) Titled A Higher Call, the book chronicles the life of Franz Stigler, a fighter ace in the German Luftwaffe, or air force.

An airline pilot who hailed from Bavaria, Stigler joined the Luftwaffe when recruiters made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He battled Britain’s Desert Air Force over North Africa, fought against Patton and Montgomery in Sicily, and ended up opposing the Allied combined bomber offensive against Germany. Just before Christmas time in 1943, he had a chance to bring down a crippled straggler from a massive B-17 raid against his homeland. Stigler passed up the chance. His forbearance stemmed from a code of honor that forbade attacking helpless enemies. That code bound combat pilots even in Germany’s life-and-death struggle against the Grand Alliance. Long after the war Stigler met and befriended Charlie Brown, the U.S. Army Air Forces pilot whose life he had spared.

A Higher Call isn’t just a rollicking good read. It is history with a purpose. Makos and Alexander leadoff their account with a simple question: can decent men fight on both sides of a bad war? Stigler’s life is Exhibit A in their case for the affirmative. For a descendant of decent men who fought in good causes and at least one who fought in a wretched cause -- family lore has it that my great-great grandfather had to trudge home from Georgia to Middle Tennessee after fighting against General Sherman -- this is a congenial way of looking at the past. It also happens to be empirically true. It seems not even Hitler’s war machine was made up wholly of mustache-twirling evildoers.

Does the fact that pockets of honor and goodwill exist among enemies mean bloodshed can always be avoided? Hardly. But understanding that nations and organizations are bodies of people, each with his own motives and worldview, is part of knowing the human terrain in times of strife. Reducing opponents to scum and villainy, furthermore, risks foreclosing opportunities for eventual peacemaking and reconciliation. In short, affording the enemy due respect is wise politics and strategy. That’s not a bad takeaway from a work about aerial warfare -- especially at a time of year when we hope for peace on earth.

Merry Christmas.

Since China decided to force the issue over ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyu archipelago, Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou has been pushing an “East China Sea Peace Initiative” aimed at convincing the parties to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute to set aside their territorial claims for the sake of mutual economic prosperity. In essence they would agree to kick the can down the road, sharing undersea resources around the islands in hopes that tempers will eventually cool -- easing the political deadlock.

The initiative’s slogan is “Safeguarding Sovereignty, Promoting Joint Exploration and Development.” Such a proposal makes sense as much as any venture can in this hothouse environment. But however worthy Taipei’s cause, the two halves of its slogan appear irreconcilable. Japan, China, and Taiwan all assert sovereignty over the contested islets. Who rules a particular bit of ground is typically a zero-sum game. Japan will yield the Senkakus, or China will. There is no safeguarding every party’s claim to sovereignty.

The Ma administration’s proposal, it seems, pits the motives Athenian historian Thucydides saw at work behind human actions -- namely fear, honor, and interest-- against one another. It amounts to hoping that rational calculations of economic self-interest will overrule equally elemental imperatives such as fear of future aggression or the thirst for honor and prestige. It amounts to hoping that rationalism will induce the parties to make a durable peace.

And indeed, such an approach makes perfect sense in cost/benefit terms. Clausewitz urges statesmen and soldiers to let the value of the political object guide the magnitude and duration of the effort they exert on behalf of that object. But this is a rather sterile way of looking at the world. It implies that the worth of human goals -- goals that are inherently subjective -- can be quantified. Such a view is problematic. It ignores how fear and honor color calculations such as Clausewitz’s.

Basic impulses, that is, drive up the value of national goals -- making it hard to back down from confrontations or conclude a lasting peace.This is my roundabout way of casting doubt on Taipei’s peace initiative. President Ma is a skilled diplomat. I hope he’s right about the dynamics at work in the East China Sea. But I don’t think so.

Our friends at the Center for International Maritime Security are running a “Maritime Futures Project” and requested some input on the following question, among others: “What advice would you give to a smaller nation on the maritime investments it should pursue, and why?”

Your humble scribe’s response:

Lesser maritime nations often seem to assume they have to compete symmetrically with the strong in order to accomplish their goals. That would mean that, say, a Vietnam would have to build a navy capable of contending on equal terms with China's South Sea Fleet in order to fulfill its strategic aims. That need not be true. Here at the U.S. Naval War College we sometimes debate whether small states have grand strategies, or whether grand strategy is a preserve of the strong. Small coastal states do have grand strategies. In fact, there's a premium on thinking and acting strategically when you have only meager resources to tap. Our Canadian friends, for instance, take pride in operating across interagency boundaries. Small states can't simply throw resources at problems and expect to solve them. They have to think and invest smart. That's my first bit of advice.

What kinds of strategies and forces should the weak pursue? Here's the second bit of advice. They should consult great thinkers of the past. The French jeune ecole of the nineteenth century formulated some fascinating ideas about how to compete with a Royal Navy that ruled the waves. Sir Julian Corbett fashioned a notion of active defense by which an inferior fleet could prevent a greater one from accomplishing its goals. In effect it could hug the stronger fleet, remaining nearby to keep the enemy from exercising command of the sea. Mao Zedong's writings about active defense also apply in large part to the nautical domain. The notions of sea denial and maritime guerrilla warfare should resonate with smaller powers today. Clinging to an adversary while imposing high costs on him is central to maritime strategies of the weak.

And third, what does that mean in force-structure terms? It means smaller maritime powers should look for inexpensive hardware and tactics that make life tough and expensive for bigger powers. I have urged the Taiwan Navy to downplay its sea-control fleet in favor of platforms like missile-armed fast patrol boats that could give a superior Chinese navy fits. Such acquisitions are worth studying even for a great naval power like Japan. So long as Tokyo caps defense spending at one percent of GDP, it has to get the most bang it can for the buck. Sea denial should be in its portfolio.

Bottom line, lesser powers should refuse to despair about their maritime prospects. They should design their fleets as creatively as possible, taking advantage of the home-field advantage all nations enjoy in their immediate environs. That may mean a navy founded on small craft.

Scholars and practitioners debate what makes a good leader, whether leaders are born or made, and what virtues a leader should possess. What no one has done is formulate a satisfactory definition of what leadership is.

I prefer the older way of examining these questions -- the method proffered by the Greek historian Plutarch two millennia ago. Among his many works, Plutarch compiled a series of capsule biographies of famous Greeks and Romans. By studying and comparing the lives of eminent figures of the past, readers could glimpse the traits they should emulate or shun to live well.

A famous American, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, shuffled off his mortal coil this week. Inouye’s life is worthy of a Plutarch. Three things stand out for me. First, he displayed valor in combat during World War II. He served in the European theater after enlisting in the U.S. Army’s 442d Regimental Combat Team, a predominantly Japanese-American unit. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for clearing three German machine-gun positions near San Terenzo, Italy, and for doing so while suffering life-threatening gunshot wounds.

Second, he took an avid interest in naval and military affairs once elected to Congress. The roster of lawmakers with military experience and expertise dwindles further with his passing, impoverishing the legislature’s oversight function.

And finally, Senator Inouye fearlessly championed American purposes and power in the Asia-Pacific, where his native Hawaii remains the strategic lynchpin it has been for over a century. I met the senator only once, last year, at a Washington Navy Yard event celebrating Naval War College graduation. He delivered a refreshingly tough-minded speech portraying China’s confrontational actions toward its neighbors as an effort to expose weaknesses in the U.S.-led alliance system.

This is a test the United States must pass. Inouye warned Americans to gird themselves for strategic competition with China. That sort of candor befits a soldier, Medal of Honor recipient, and elder statesman.

Plutarch would approve. R.I.P.

A question about historical precedents for China’s rise landed in my reader mailbag last week. “What,” my correspondent asked, “is the better optic for looking at China today -- Bismarckian/Wilhelmine Germany, or post-Meiji Japan? Or both?” Both! Forced to choose, though, I think Imperial Germany supplies more useful indices for plotting China’s trajectory. Someone should really write something making the comparison. Like 19th-century Germany, China is a land power situated amid weaker, nervous neighbors. To compound matters, it has set out to make itself a sea power. Managing its rise without uniting a hostile coalition could demand a virtuoso performance from Chinese diplomats.

The early reviews are less than stellar -- at least from this reviewer.

This isn’t to say the Japanese precedent lacks merit altogether. The Meiji Restoration saw this secluded island nation burst forth from centuries of military rule, vowing to remake itself as an outwardly Western industrial power in order to fend off Western imperialism. It did so virtually overnight by historical standards.Within three decades after the Meiji emperor ordained that Japan would modernize, it had constructed a navy able to vanquish China’s. It stood on the brink of crushing the Russian Navy. Tokyo’s triumph in the Russo-Japanese War signified Asians’ first significant defeat of a European imperial power in centuries. It electrified regional audiences.

Meiji Japan, then, shows how quickly an authoritarian Asian nation with moxie, the makings of great power, and strong political leadership can marshal the necessary resources. Those who deprecate China’s rise -- or prophesy that it will take Beijing many decades to consummate its economic and military development -- ought to bear the Japanese example in mind. It has been done before, and at breakneck speed. Alfred Thayer Mahan pronounced Japan one of the two most changed societies of the late 19th century, alongside his own United States. Theodore Roosevelt saluted Japan for vaulting into the forefront of progressive civilization.

Fin de siècle Germany, on the other hand, is useful because it provides not just one but two yardsticks for China’s rise. During his long tenure, founding Chancellor Otto von Bismarck skillfully depicted the Reich as a satisfied great power with no further claims on its neighbors’ territory. But Kaiser Wilhelm II dismissed the Iron Chancellor after ascending to the throne. Where Bismarck had gone out of his way to soothe anxieties among Germany’s neighbors, Wilhelm frayed nerves as though by conscious choice. Ultimately, of course, he marched Europe over the precipice into World War I. Such are the wages of vesting near-absolute power in the hands of one man -- or a few men.

James Madison sagely counseled that enlightened statesmen aren’t always at the helm of state. Is China’s new leadership more like the Meiji emperor, Otto von Bismarck, or Kaiser Wilhelm II?

Yesterday Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force scrambled F-15 Eagle fighter jets and an E-2C airborne early-warning aircraft after a Japan Coast Guard ship spotted a Chinese plane near the Senkaku/Diaoyu archipelago. China’s State Oceanic Administration described the flight of its B-3837 patrol plane as part of air-sea operations around the islands. And indeed, such missions may become a regular feature of the Senkakus dispute.

China’s small-stick diplomacy, it appears, has taken on an aviation component. Beijing wants to show that it -- not Tokyo -- administers the contested real estate effectively.  There are advantages to routine flights. Aircraft can operate over the waters around the archipelago, much as ships from China’s nonmilitary sea services have for months. Planes can also overfly the Senkakus directly, whereas landing personnel on the islets could trigger a conflict. That’s a low-risk way to make a high-impact statement.  In effect Beijing can dare Tokyo to do something about it.

Aloft as at sea, showing the Chinese flag in Chinese-claimed waters and skies cultivates the image of normalcy. Military forces fight for disputed objects; the outcome is often in doubt or reversible.  By contrast, policing the skies is a prerogative, and indeed the duty, of a sovereign state. Portraying itself as the rightful sovereign over the Senkakus and the adjoining seas and airspace is precisely the point for Beijing. That’s why police services like the State Oceanic Administration are the face of Chinese policy in the Senkakus, at Scarborough Shoal, and in other territorial controversies.

In operational terms, how does air power fit into China’s toolkit for the island dispute? Aerial patrols are far from the ideal implement for the job. The late Admiral J. C. Wylie helps explain why. Wylie faults air-power proponents for conflating the power to destroy from the air with the capacity to control territory and people. Air forces, he writes, can rain destruction from the sky. But they cannot loiter on station indefinitely to exercise control. To use a law-enforcement simile, planes and helicopters are like police cruisers roaming the streets -- except that, unlike police cars, they can’t stop for long, lest they crash. Their presence is episodic.

For Wylie the man with a gun standing at a key spot on the map is the true arbiter of control.  Eighty percent of life is showing up, and staying. Like the cop walking his beat, the soldier, marine, or policeman toting a gun can mount a constant physical presence, and thereby maintain order and suppress lawlessness. Sea power occupies the middle ground between a ground presence and the intermittent presence supplied by air cover. While their endurance is finite and the sea areas they monitor vast, ships can remain on scene for a long time. They can dawdle on the high seas to show the flag and perform police duty.

What does this disquisition mean for the Senkakus impasse? Ships will doubtless remain around the islets to put substance into China’s maritime claims. I doubt Beijing will land law-enforcement personnel, let alone troops, in the Senkakus. The man holding a gun would have to fight his way ashore, perhaps touching off a clash entailing vast and unforeseeable consequences. And airplanes? One imagines Japanese mariners will see them overhead more and more often. Buzzing the islands does little to enforce China’s control there. But it could well advance Beijing’s messaging campaign -- helping it consolidate its image as their legitimate ruler.