Council of Foreign Relations: Asia Unbound comments, "The Chinese Ambassador to South Korea gave a rather dramatic warning to the leader of South Korea's opposition Democratic Party on February 25 that a decision to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system would put China–South Korean relations at risk...Chinese threats of punishment are likely to alienate rather than win over the South Korean public, while risking damage to a vibrant economic relationship that has brought China and South Korea together. Threats to cut off economic ties or discriminate against South Korean exports are inconsistent with China's World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations and will generate resentment among the South Korean public. China cannot hope to maintain friendly relations with its neighbors through economic threats or bullying."
The Associated Press reports: "The response from Beijing and others to an arbitration panel's ruling invalidating China's vast South China Sea maritime claims has brought no surprises, but much more military transparency is needed to reduce tensions in the region, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said Tuesday. Adm. Scott Swift also criticized China-Russia joint naval exercises planned next month in the South China Sea, saying the choice of location was not conducive to "increasing the stability within the region." He also said any decision by China to declare an air defense identification zone over the strategic water body would be "very destabilizing from a military perspective." Swift was visiting the northern Chinese port of Qingdao as part of efforts to build trust and understanding between the two navies, now locked in a protracted competition for primacy in East Asia, where the U.S. has traditionally been the dominant military power."
Bloomberg View comments, "A bit of China-bashing is inevitable in any U.S. election year. Over the past month, though, after China roundly dismissed an arbitration ruling that rejected its claims in the South China Sea, a chorus of voices has angrily denounced the country as an international outlaw...China is clearly groping for a way to integrate into the current global order while also being accorded the respect and influence it feels it deserves. Frictions are inevitable. That doesn't mean each is an attack on the preexisting system, or part of some master plan to overturn it and place China at the head of a new one. It does mean that the system itself needs to be open to evolving, instead of being treated as an inviolate structure that can't possibly be questioned....The priority for now should be to ease tensions and find a set of rules upon which everyone in the region can agree."