China is playing a careful yet potentially dangerous strategic game in its immediate region.

On the one hand, Beijing wants to show that it's arrived as Asia's dominant superpower, and is putting its neighbors on notice by establishing military footholds in the South China Sea and even the Indian Ocean.

At the same time, China's leaders are an inherently cautious bunch who are strongly disinclined from taking downside-heavy geo-strategic risks. Its leaders want to prepare the region for the reality of Chinese hegemony, but without triggering crises that could prove fatal to China's internal stability or international prestige.

So China wants to expand its power in a way that leaves its neighbors unwilling to take it on. But that means building up a military presence in Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines and India's strategic backyard and even their claimed territorial waters. And these are countries deeply suspicious of Beijing's intentions to begin with.