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In the early years of China's rise to economic and military prowess, the guiding principle for its government was Deng Xiaoping's maxim: "Hide Your Strength, Bide Your Time." Now, more than three decades after paramount leader Deng launched his reforms, that policy has seemingly lapsed or simply become unworkable as China's military muscle becomes too expansive to conceal and its ambitions too pressing to postpone.

The current row with Southeast Asian nations over territorial claims in the energy-rich South China Sea is a prime manifestation of this change, especially the standoff with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal.

In what is widely interpreted as a counter to China's growing influence, the United States is pushing ahead with a muscular realignment of its forces towards the Asia-Pacific region, despite Washington's fatigue with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Pentagon's steep budget cuts.And regional nations, including those with a history of adversarial or distant relations with the United States, are embracing Washington's so-called strategic pivot to Asia.

the polite fiction employed by Washington serves Asia-Pacific countries who seek security assurances from the far-away United States without sacrificing important trade with nearby China and its fast-growing economy."Treading too forcefully on China's interests can and has resulted in economic reprisals against Southeast Asian countries," said Scott Harrison of Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a consultancy in Manila.

Beijing responded last month to its South China Sea dispute with Manila by tightening quality controls on Philippine fruit and cutting the number of visits by Chinese citizens to the Philippines.

Some regional security experts, however, say the renewed U.S. emphasis on Asia has emboldened China's opponents in the South China Sea dispute, an outcome Washington might not have intended."The U.S. becoming involved has fired up the Philippines and Vietnam to contest things more strongly," said Sam Bateman, a retired senior Australian naval officer and maritime security researcher at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

"We'll be strengthening our presence in the Asia-Pacific, and budget reductions will not come at the expense of this critical region."

Xinhua said the US role could be good for China in helping to secure the "peaceful environment" it needed to continue its economic development.

But it added: "While boosting its military presence in the Asia-Pacific, the United States should abstain from flexing its muscles, as this won't help solve regional disputes. "If the United States indiscreetly applies militarism in the region, it will be like a bull in a china shop, and endanger peace instead of enhancing regional stability."

Local officials say the unrest broke out as news spread of a fight between young patrons at a casino in Osh. The groups of young Kyrgyz patrolling the streets of Osh and Jalalabad blame Uzbeks for starting the fighting as part of a plot by neighboring Uzbekistan to wrest control of the region.

the Kyrgyz provisional government has accused deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev -- who draws much of his support from the Southern Kyrgyz --  of instigating the unrest through proxies as a way to disrupt a planned constitutional referendum on June 27. The referendum would have given the country's new leaders a foundation for establishing legitimacy.

Kyrgyz military officials say that agents of Bakiyev dispatched well-trained mercenary snipers to Osh and Jalalabad who shot indiscriminately at locals to spread chaos. While it's not surprising that the new government would seek to pin the blame on its predecessor, there is compelling evidence to suggest that the unrest may have been carefully orchestrated. These include attempts by unidentified armed groups to seize control of TV channels, universities, and local government buildings during the fighting, unlikely targets for a mob driven purely by ethnic animosity.

The New York Times is reporting that Unit 61398 has resumed operations and is actively engaged in hacking into any U.S. systems that might hold information considered to be of use for the People's Republic of China.

President Barack Obama unveiled a defense strategy on Thursday that calls for greater U.S. military presence in Asia and envisions cutting troops in Europe as the Pentagon seeks to reduce spending by nearly half a trillion dollars after a decade of war

Obama, in a Pentagon news conference alongside Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, released a strategy document that calls for the United States to maintain a force that can win one war while still having the capability to deter the objectives of an adversary in a second conflict.That is a shift away from the military's often repeated goal of being able to fight and prevail in two wars in different theatres simultaneously.

Whether the euro lives or dies, the chaotic way Europe has tackled the crisis could undermine the region's geopolitical clout for years to come and leave it at a distinct disadvantage in a rapidly changing world.

"The Europeans are completely consumed with a battle to save the euro zone," says Ian Bremmer, president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. "It's a deep and ongoing crisis bigger than any they've experienced in decades... it's an environment where European leaders could hardly be expected to prioritise anything else."That could leave the continent being increasingly sidelined as emerging powers - not just the BRIC powers of Brazil, Russia, India and China but other states such as Turkey, Indonesia and South Africa - grow in importance.At the very least, it could undermine the ability of the continent's leaders to persuade the rest of the world to take them seriously on a range of issues, from trade to the importance of democracy and human rights."Europe probably isn't going to stop preaching to the rest of the world," says Nikolas Gvosdev, professor of national security studies at the US Naval War College. "But it's much less likely that others are going to be inclined to listen."

At the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, European states suffered the indignity of being outside the room when the final deal was struck between the United States and emerging powers. In the aftermath of the euro zone crisis, it's a position European leaders may simply have to get used to.

The real winner from new natural-resource wealth beyond the Khyber Pass will be China

Chinese foreign investment and aid has accelerated dramatically over the past decade, especially in Africa. In November 2009 alone, for example, China's largesse amounted to $10 billion in low-interest loans and $1 billion in commercial loans to the continent. With Beijing as cheerleader, trade has soared from $1 billion in 1992 to $106.8 billion in 2008.

The DRC provides the best cautionary parallel to Afghanistan: The discovery in the late 1990s of copper, coltan, and other minerals in eastern Congo gave new life to a civil war that has now claimed upwards of 4 million lives. Flagging combatants were funded by mineral extraction, and much of those resources eventually flowed to China.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose country shares U.S. fears about Islamist militancy in Central Asia, said the political system set up by Sunday's referendum could bring extremists to power or cause the collapse of the state.

Interim leader Roza Otunbayeva, speaking before the first results were known on Sunday, said Kyrgyzstan -- which lies on a major drug trafficking route from Afghanistan -- had embarked on a path to establishing a "true people's democracy."

Official results showed that with almost all votes counted, 90.6 percent of voters backed a new constitution paving the way for a parliamentary election in October.