In a world of words, the saber rattling in any theatre of conflict can get all sides to the very edge of war.
Thus, the fiery exchanges between the United States and China lately, perhaps also between half of the European states and Beijing, should be handled with extreme caution.
On the South China Sea, where trade worth trillions of US dollars pass by eachyear, it would be tragic to see all sides come to blow.
With Chinese military modernisation, its resurgence as a maritime power is almost complete. Last month, China's second aircraft carrier was completed at the port of Shandong in the country's northeast.
Military analysts worth their salt know that a second aircraft carrier is meant to back the first in the event of war.
For the US, when they have a war of words with North Korea, the Third and Seventh Fleet of the Indo-Pacific Command based in Honolulu, Hawaii, will ply the waters of the East and South China Sea, together or with one stopping-over in the deep water port of Changi, Singapore.
As Covid-19 spreads, China may take advantage of the situation to consolidate its claims on the South China Sea. But Beijing should know it is morally and legally obliged to show all the evidence that the South China Sea belongs to China.
Looking back, the US restored some semblance ofnormalcy with China, marked by events such as the visit of then president Richard Nixon in 1972. Between 2001 and 2002, US administrations would help China become a member of the World Trade Organisation.
Between 2002 and 2015, China enjoyed its biggest growth spurts, as much as 300 to 400 per cent in its per capita income. Globalisation, obviously, had worked in China's favour, which was why over the last decades, some 800 million Chinese had been lifted out of absolute poverty. The world did wish China well.
But when China Cable began leaking to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism in November last year, further reported by the New York Times, where among the highly classified internal communications contained President Xi Jinping's urging of officials to "show no mercy" towards two to three million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, Southeast Asians are inclined to wonder if this is the mentality of China on the South China Sea?
China's foreign minister often snaps back at journalists who raise questions on Xinjiang. His usual retort is often, "Have you been to Xinjiang? Do you know we have raised 800 million people out of poverty ?"
The fact is neither of the states currently at odds with China over the SouthChina Sea are inconflict with any foreign adversaries of China, nor do they want to.
Thus, China cannot use the carrot-andstick or "reward and punishment" approach on Brunei, Malaysia,the Philippines, Vietnam or Taiwan. Granted, China and the US are locked in various kinds of conflict, not excluding Japan, over the East China Sea, and India up in the Himalayas.
Nor should one exclude China's deteriorating relations with Australia and Canada. It is clear that Beijing's diplomacy has led to China increasingly seen not as a progressive or status quo power, but a revisionist one.
The latter implies China is out to upend the whole global order. By next year or sooner, China has to concede that its hardened attitude on the East or South China Sea are two causes of great concern since 2006, with outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urging all countries around the Indian Ocean, South China Sea and Pacific Ocean to think "big" on how to handle China's growing stature.
On May 31 last year, the US Department of Defence announced with the Indo-Pacific Strategy. Australia came up wit a similar Indo-Pacific Paper.
Even Asean had the Asean Outlook on Indo-Pacific document. As things stand, the world is roiled in pandemic, so the tensions in the South China Sea can be momentarily overlooked.
But if China were to seize on this to push its claims deeper into the area, more countries would be naturally alarmed. Not unlike the fear that many Hong Kongers have, many countries that want to trade with China will also begin to wonder if it has become a super-assertive power that needs to be counterbalanced in every way, as Taiwan has always advised.
The world will, in due course, also become afraid of the true designs of the Belt and Road Initiative. Is it a form of predatory economy or debt trap diplomacy?
The world does not have to concur with the West for that matter. But the West and the rest of the world cannot let its guard down on China if the opening gambit of China is 90 per cent of the whole of the South China Sea.
The EMIR Research think tank does not want things in the South China Sea to go awry too. Let's work together to quell the pandemic.
China has to learn how to be humble. Ninety per cent of everything in the South China Sea is a sign of how China has made the wrong moves.
The writer is president and chief executive officer of EMIR Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research