China would promote its own version of Asian regional security at the Shangri-La Dialogue or Asia Security Summit, an Asian Defense forum hosted by Singapore this weekend.

According to Hong Lei, China's foreign ministry spokesman, Beijing's delegation will be led by Wang Guanzhong, deputy chief of the general staff of China's People's Liberation Army.

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During a regular briefing, Hong said Beijing's delegation will fully elaborate China's Asian security concept.

Hong added that Fu Ying, head of the foreign affairs committee of the China's National People's Congress will also attend the Dialogue. Fu, Beijing's ex-ambassador to London and former vice foreign minister, is one of the more effective communicator compared with other Chinese officials, Hong said.

Three-day summit and China's threat

The security summit is a three-day forum among top brass security officials in the region and U.S. security officials are also present. It started Friday, May 30, amid the escalating tensions between China and its Asian neighbors over maritime territorial claims.

Prior the Shangri-La Dialogue, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned countries not to build military alliances in the Asian region.

"To beef up an entrenched or military alliance targeted at a third party is not conducive to maintaining common security," Xi said in a regional summit last week. Xi did not name any particular country.

China has been embroiled in a dispute with its Asian neighbors since last year, with China making territorial claims evidenced by naval and commercial movements in disputed waters in the Asian region.

It has disputes with Japan over Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea, shoal disputes with the Philippines and the most recent with Hanoi about an oil rig operation near the shores of Vietnam, which resulted in the sinking of one Vietnamese fishing vessel.

Why China is doing what it's doing

For the uninitiated, China's actions of discriminating its Asian neighbors don't make any sense. It apparently seems that it is willing to sacrifice its relations with its neighbors such as the Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and other ASEAN countries.

It built an oil rig and threatened Vietnamese and Philippine fishermen who crossed the disputed territorial waters.

For experts, China is doing exactly that. It is willing to sacrifice the status and plans to present a new model of power relations.

In this new model, China wants to exert more influence and power in the region and to accomplish that means a lessened U.S. presence in Asia.

American presence in Asia is characterized by a network of alliances and weakening the relations within this network would result in weakened U.S. regional power.

China's strategy, the age-old 'divide and rule' is manifested by it picking on individual countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam that the U.S. is unlikely to defend because the disputes between countries. The U.S. could not simply intervene.

Beijing is harassing its neighbors who are more eager to get U.S. support, but it becomes difficult for America to maneuver in the region. If the dispute is between two countries, the U.S. could not immediately engage because it has no direct stake.

China's gambit is this: it confronts the U.S. to make a choice between fighting China or leaving its allies behind.

TagsAsia Security Summit, Shangri-La Dialogue, China Asia for Asia Security Theory