In the wake of continued heated rhetoric from North Korea, the United States is deploying a ballistic missile defence system in Pacific Island of Guam.
With tensions between China and Taiwan rapidly increasing, the tone of China's official media has also become progressively more strident, observes former senior RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of US forces in the Pacific, told the Shangri-La Dialogue, a high-level defence forum in Singapore, that PLA navy had started "reciprocating" US navy's tactics of sending ships and aircraft into the 200-nautical-mile zone off China's coast.
'Pyongyang's strategy seems to be a cry to be treated as equal with the US and Beijing and this aspiration is premised on equipping itself with weapons as devastating as theirs,' says Rajaram Panda.
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