Contributing to the Center for New American Security's Flashpoints: Security in the East and South China Seas, Michael Auslin writes on increasing tensions in the East China Sea and offers policy considerations.

The European Union (EU) has announced plans to levy a tax on airline emissions for all planes landing and taking off from EU airports. This tax would be calculated not only based on mileage flown in EU airspace but also for the entire length of the flight (thus, Chinese and Japanese airlines would be taxed for an entire journey from Beijing or Tokyo).

Until the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the American view of radical Islam and its many discontents was shaped more by the Middle East than South Asia. The U.S. has long been at odds with the raging Ayatollah in Iran, the murderous truck bomber in Lebanon and the masked Palestinian "freedom...

Ever since its founding in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has maintained an aggressive and bellicose international security posture. Today, fully two decades after the end of the Cold War, North Korea's external defense and security policies look arguably more extreme and anomalous than ever.

An unfortunate aspect of national discourse on Afghanistan has been a loss of focus on how South Asia fits more broadly into the wider Asian region and beyond. This means measuring U.S. actions in South Asia against two broader yardsticks: their impact on the spread of radical Islam and on hegemonic Chinese ambitions in Asia.

A jihadist in plain sight in Lahore makes the most-wanted list.

We need India to have peaceful borders in order to compete with China, and we need to diminish China's influence in the Middle East. And finally, the Obama Administration needs to resource its stated Asia strategy, which it so far shows little sign of doing. 

Obama's administration is finally taking a tougher stance on Beijing after years wasted trying for cooperation.