From KERA at Dallas, this is Think.

I'm John McKay sitting in for Chris Boyd.

America and China, are we headed for armed conflict?

That is a very real concern of more than a few international observers watching the South China

Sea right now.

Increasingly violent confrontations between China's maritime forces and among others, those

of the Philippines and Taiwan are taking place.

It follows China unilaterally declaring about 90% of the South China Sea its territory, even creating artificial islands in the region. For more than a decade, Craig Singleton served in high-level national security rules, briefing U.S. and foreign officials on sensitive issues such as China's

military expansion overseas and security issues in East Asia.

He is now director of the China program and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense

of Democracies.

His essay, China and the U.S. are careening toward South China Sea crisis, appears in Foreign Policy

Magazine. He joins us now. Craig, welcome to think. Thanks, John. This has become way more than just

a war of words. There's no weapons that have been fired yet, but ships are being rammed and ships

illegally boarded, and it's getting worse rammed and ships illegally boarded and it's

getting worse.

That's right.

I mean, it's really emblematic of China's gray zone tactics.

You know, here in the United States, we often think of war as binary.

We're at war or we're at peace.

But the Chinese don't have the same view towards conflict.

And so the gray zone are sort of

...