Tectonic shifts are underway in East Asian geopolitics. Thursday saw several incidents that called attention to the increasingly insecure and fast changing strategic and security dynamics of a region known in recent decades mostly for booming business. Another Uighur terrorist attack in China, a shoot-out between the Koreas along their disputed maritime border and, to top it off, a coup in Thailand all brought simmering regional conflicts to the fore. These incidents come on the heels of a consequential Russo-Chinese strategy session and an ongoing maritime clash between China and Vietnam . Despite vastly different causes and contexts, each of these events serves as a single piece in the much greater puzzle of assessing where the world's most populous and wealthy region is headed in the future. To the outside world, the surprising thing about East Asia is how the sudden eruptions of conflict seem to come out of nowhere and then retreat into the background as if nothing ever hap...
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