China has vowed not to use force to resolve tensions around a maritime dispute with Vietnam, but analysts say the repercussions from the country's growing economic and military might will continue to be felt by its neighbors.
Beijing responded to Vietnam's live-fire naval drills on Monday by calling for further dialogue and ruling out the use of force to settle the dispute.
"We will not resort to the use of force or the threat of force," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing on Tuesday. "We hope relevant countries will do more for peace and stability in the region."
Vietnam said its live-fire drill was purely routine.
Tensions have escalated in recent weeks between China and other rival claimants to the strategically vital South China Sea.
In Manila, Philippine President Benigno Aquino said Tuesday his country needed help from longtime ally the United States in the increasingly tense maritime dispute.
"Of course they [China] are a superpower, they have more than 10 times our population. We do not want any hostilities to break out," Aquino told reporters when asked about recent Chinese actions in the disputed waters.
"Perhaps the presence of our treaty partners, the United States of America, ensures that all of us will have freedom of navigation [and] will conform to international law."
Competing claims
The Spratlys (in Chinese, Nansha) are claimed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia, while China and Vietnam say they have sovereignty over the Paracels (in Chinese, Changsha.)
Beijing has blamed Hanoi for a recent confrontation between a Chinese surveillance ship and a Vietnamese survey vessel last month.
"Some country took unilateral actions to impair China's sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and released groundless and irresponsible remarks with the attempt to expand and complicate the issue of the South China Seas," Hong said.
Meanwhile, the People's Liberation Army Daily newspaper said in an editorial it opposed any other country getting involved in the dispute, which is regulated by a U.N.-backed accord.
"China resolutely opposes any country unrelated to the South China Sea issue meddling in disputes, and it opposes the internationalization of the South China Sea issue," the paper said.
"This dispute must be resolved peacefully through friendly consultations between the two parties involved."
Test of nerves
Politics professor Wang Weizheng, of Richmond University in Virginia, said Vietnam's live-fire naval drill on Monday in the South China Sea showed just how nervous China's neighbors were.
"Vietnam's reaction reflects the great unease that China's neighbors feel over China's growing national power in recent years, and in particular in its naval reach and level of development," Wang said.
"Vietnam is probably hoping to make other countries that have territorial disputes with China, including the Philippines, sit up and take notice," he said.
He said Hanoi was also likely hoping that U.S. involvement would curb Chinese military power in the region.
Seton Hall University professor Yang Liyu said China's military might already posed a potential threat to its neighbors, and even to U.S.
power.
"The U.S. very clearly regards China as the number one potential military threat now," Yang said. "Relations between Vietnam and China are getting more and more tense, and Vietnam's attitude is getting more and more hardline."
"I think there's a connection here with the U.S.'s own attitudes, which regards China as a threat."
"First we had the theory of the collapse of China, and now we have the theory of the rise of China, which indicates a lot of changes in the way Americans think about China," Yang added.
No backing down
Wang said the suspected abundance of natural resources in the disputed Spratly and Paracel island chains in the South China Sea meant that continuing confrontations were likely in the region.
"A lot of countries are exploring the region for oil and natural gas reserves," he said. "I believe that these are the real reasons [behind the dispute.]"
"China isn't going to back down, and Vietnam isn't going to back down," he said. "This sort of problem by its very nature is going to drag on for a while."
Reported by Tang Qiwei for RFA's Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.