China’s Getting Pushy. America Should Push Back: Ratner

US intelligence said Thursday there’s a high probability China deployed anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles to three artificial islands during recent military drills in the contested South China Sea, CNN reports, although a US defense official added it wasn’t clear if the missiles remained behind.

Ely Ratner, Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security, emails Global Briefing that such moves are “destabilizing, but hardly surprising.”

“Beijing is intent on controlling the waterway, and President Xi Jinping has made crystal clear that diplomacy and international law are not going to constrain his outsized ambitions. It was therefore only a matter of time before China began introducing high-end military capabilities to its artificial islands,” Ratner says.

Read the Full Briefing at CNN