A recent article in the official Chinese Army newspaper, Jiefangjun Bao, has called for the development of China's at-sea replenishment capabilities, to free the Navy from its coastal patrol role. Furthermore, China has been attempting, through claims on island groups like the Spratleys, the Paracels, and the Natunas, to redefine its borders to enclose the bulk of the South China Sea. China's claims on the Senkakus have brought them head to head with Japan. In contrast to this apparent expansionist bent, the Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese Army, General Fu Quanyou, said this week in Indonesia that China's military policy is strictly "defensive in nature." Fu Quanyou stated that China's primary concern is with economic development, and that "China does not seek hegemony, foreign aggression, or expansion." China's actions and internal debates contradict their external assurances of peaceful intent. And even if their primary goal is economic development, the need for access to Southeast Asian resources will bring them into conflict with Japan, the United States, and the Southeast Asian countries themselves. —Taiwan/Japan: The situation over the disputed Diaoutai/Senkaku Islands has ratcheted up another notch, as a group of Taiwanese ex-convicts with military diving and demolitions training have formed a "death squad" and vowed to destroy the lighthouse erected on one of the islands by right-wing Japanese activists. The group is being backed by Tung Nien-tai, the head of a center which provides services to former prison inmates. Tung has promised the families of any of the men killed in the operation 600,000 New Taiwan Dollars each. In Japan, the activists who erected the lighthouse recently dragged a Chinese flag through the streets behind a truck, while broadcasting anti-Chinese slogans. The governments of Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have kept official statements and protests low key, while allowing their citizens to provide fury to the debate. The question is whether the governments can reign in their respective activists before they drag the countries into open violence.