China testing Obama as it expands its influence in Southeast Asia

The Obama administration has been forcefully trying for nearly six years to prod China to abide by the usual international rules and to curb Beijing’s controversial claims of Chinese sovereignty over a maritime corridor in Southeast Asia.

But new evidence is emerging that China has been playing a familiar game of ignoring U.S. warnings or concerns, this time by installing radar, missiles and jet fighters on a series of reefs and atolls over which it has asserted control in the South China Sea. The long-simmering dispute in this far-flung spot on the globe represents yet another test for President Obama’s foreign policy in this final year of his presidency.