China's fishing fleet has expanded to match its growing appetite for seafood to feed its population and its export markets. (ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

China is pushing outward. The country has made steady moves to reclaim its role as the pre-eminent power in the Pacific Rim. This expansion, however, differs from those made at any time in its history, because it is aimed at the contentious and crowded seas in South Asia. Conflict over the region's fishing grounds, not its oil and mineral resources, has proved more frequent, more volatile and less controllable by the various regional governments