See my post on Lyc. Unlike the fishing boat incident, the South...

See my post on Lyc.
Unlike the fishing boat incident, the South China Sea situation is NOT going to be settled easily IMHO...That asian saving face...Largest self esteem issue on the planet..Actually akin to whos god is better in the MidEast but without the overt killing .
You aint seen nuthin yet. People will do anything for protection of their sense of self value and it will percolate down from the ego struggling puppet masters .
Yes they fear a showdown..all of them but Germany went to war thinking grandiosely that they would win all based on a skilled manipulation of nationalistic poor self esteem. You dont think the Generals and Central Committee types arent just like that? Ignore the distracting details..analyze the process generically.

ALK stands to gain with sovereign security...but it needs to move fast to be able to provide support to those who would look away from China for strategic supply. I mean fast! Real fast!
The big question is if it gets hot will it really matter if ALK goes to $1-2

If Oz REE companies had any sense at all they would move quickly for non Chinese support ,collude and amalgamate LYC,ALK,NTU and work into the night to address the technical issues re one anothers ore processing.

Will trade dependencies ,perhaps with a focus to make it easy ,on REE prevent the apparently inexorable development of increasing hostilities???? Just my musings