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In the words of the Chinese saying, we are cursed to live in interesting times, a moment when the risks of global conflict largely frozen for half a century seem greater than in most of our lifetimes. To assess those

risks, the briefing room is broadcasting a series of programmes examining each of three of the most

likely arenas of conflict and asking, what are the chances of a conflagration in each?

Last week, we focused on growing tensions in the Middle East, and next week we'll be looking

at the European border of Russia, where Putin's Ukrainian adventure could spill over into neighbouring

countries, members of NATO. But today, we're focusing on the South China Sea, a heavily contested

part of the world, where there's renewed talk a possible Chinese invasion of the island of Taiwan.

Just how dangerous is the area becoming?

Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out.

First, a geography and history lesson.

Rupert Wingfield Hayes is BBC Asia correspondent based in Taipei.

Rupert Wingfield Hayes, for those that don't know,

can you tell them where Taiwan is actually geographically?

So Taiwan lies about 110 nautical miles off the southeast coast of China,

and it lies also sort of along an archipelago of

islands stretching from the Japanese archipelago to the north of Taiwan, and going all the way down

to the Philippine archipelago off the southern. So it sort of sits in between these two very

large archipelagos, the Japanese and the Philippines.

And the archipelago that you're talking about, that's the archipelago which is all situated in what we call the

South China Sea. Well, it sort of stretches from the South China Sea to the East China Sea, really,

because Japan is really in the East China Sea, the Philippines is in the South China Sea,

...