Chinese aggression in the South China Sea forcing countries such as Japan to increase defences and talk up an ‘Asian Nato’

Whoever declared that in this world “nothing is certain except death and taxes” plainly led a sheltered life. Some authorities say Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase, but it was probably first voiced by the memorably named Toby Guzzle, a comedic character in Christopher Bullock’s 1716 English farce, The Cobbler of Preston.

With all due respect to Guzzle, war is a third inescapable, global certainty, as present-day citizens of Lebanon, Ukraine and Sudan know only too well. China’s expansionist regime is testing this proposition again in the choppy waters of the South China Sea. Maritime states from the Philippines to Japan struggle with Beijing’s aggression.