"BEIJING (Reuters) - The game of military bluff that China and the United States are playing off the Chinese coast could erupt in full-fledged crisis hitting the arteries of global trade if Pentagon worries about missteps ever come true.
China has been investing big slices of its growing wealth in modernizing its military, and turning its once creaky navy into a blue water fleet that can project power far from its shores, with nuclear submarines and, maybe one day, aircraft carriers.
China is sending naval vessels further afield, to the waters off Somalia to fight pirates, and most recently through the southern Japanese islands, to Tokyo's angst.
That also worries Washington, the world's dominant power, which keeps a hefty military presence in the Asia-Pacific.
While war between the two economically intertwined powers remains a remote possibility, the Pentagon warned on Monday of risks of "misunderstanding and miscalculation" getting out of hand in this trade-driven part of the world plied by thousands of ships daily carrying cargo and oil.
"The U.S. military and the Chinese military don't have a common understanding, a rules of the road, for navigation. That's a major cause for concern," said Drew Thompson, a China expert at the Nixon Center in Washington.
The United States for its part has moved advanced attack submarines and warships to bases in Japan and Guam. It has shown no sign of giving up surveillance missions in what it considers international waters and which infuriate Beijing."
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