This summer, the world watched PRC ships attack Philippine boats with water cannons and ram them with damaging force. In one of these instances, PRC sailors assailed Philippine sailors with hatchets, severing one Filippino’s thumb. Earlier this month, the New York Times ran an exquisite, interactive piece revealing PRC incursions into other countries’ lands along its borders. Starting with Vietnam near the PRC’s six o’clock and swinging clockwise to near its eleven o’clock border with Mongolia, the NYT uses a map to place the positions. (See: China’s Great Wall of Villages – The New York Times (nytimes.com).)

PRC maneuvers at sea and on land lay bare Xi Jinping’s base preference for imperial systems that reward conquest of territory to a mightier party. He eschews the system of laws that allied countries advanced after World War II. Shrewdly, Xi builds PRC positions by chewing up others’ land in small bites. This makes potentially restorative actions appear more expensive than the value of a regurgitative result.

US leaders should recognize the serial effects of Xi’s seemingly single invasions. Then, by acting now, US leadership could save money, and possibly lives, by organizing efforts with allies to stop the PRC’s creeping micropredations from consuming its neighbors’ terrains.