Snubbed in world’s biggest war game, will Beijing make waves in South China Sea?

The resource-rich Spratly and Paracel archipelagos may be the main sticking points in the South China Sea territorial dispute, and this week the world’s two major powers were shadowboxing over the issue thousands of kilometres away in Beijing and the Western Pacific.
On the Chinese side, the fresh missive came from President Xi Jinping as he warned the visiting US Secretary of Defence James Mattis that while Beijing – a claimant to the contested waters – was committed to peace…