Muddying the whole issue has been the parallel use of "core interests" advanced by Mr. Dai.
United States officials who track Chinese public statements noted that the general did not describe the South China Sea as a region of "core interests," as China had in the past.
"This is one of many dimensions on which we'll have to adjust to a reduction in American ability to dictate terms of core interests of ours," said Yochai Benkler, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.
For decades, the United States has pursued a set of core interests in the region: countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce and safe-guarding the security of the region; standing up for Israel's security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace.
But the Swedish ambassador to South Korea, Lars Vargo, told The Economist that this was a procedural matter and his country believes North Korea was responsible.In China the strength of the American response has sparked a debate over whether the country is pushing too far with its expanded list of "core interests".
By emphasizing the respect of "core interests" as an element of the concept, China pushes its territorial claims to the forefront.
This challenges Washington to do something at which it is badly out of practice: pursue genuine diplomacy with important regional states, based on real give and take and mutual accommodation of core interests.
And though the United States has other goals in Syria, including the protection of civilians and Assad's fall, they don't rise to the level of core interests, and so are not worth going to war over.
U.S. concessions to China or Russia might presumably ameliorate tensions, but we have seen in Obama's early acquiescence to China's idea of "core interests," and later in his willingness to pursue a "new type of great power relations," -- and in his "reset" to Russia -- that they do not reverse the tide of deepening national identity gaps.
In March, senior Chinese officials pointedly warned their American counterparts that they would brook no interference in the South China Sea, which they called part of the "core interest" of sovereignty.
