Another advantage is that its neighbors are not united against China, and are highly unlikely ever to be so. There are minor disagreements among them on other matters as well. For example, in early 1996, Thailand voiced its displeasure over a wall built by Malaysia on the border between the two countries, as well as to reports that Malaysia had equipped its coastal patrol boats with weapons to attack foreign vessels that entered its waters for fishing. And the Vietnamese government recently demanded that Thailand cease violating its territorial waters. Several navies, including Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, have a qualitative advantage over China in terms of more modern ships equipped with Harpoon and Exocet anti-ship missiles.
Japan presents a different picture.
The Japanese navy has twice the underway replenishment capacity of China. That period of warning appears to have begun even before Ray spoke. Military budgets had been rising steadily since the late 1980s, and China was conducting extensive negotiations with Russia over the purchase of military equipment. China had already become the chief, and perhaps only, external source of support for Burma's pariah government. Its assistance in the construction of three highways from the border of China's Yunnan province into Burma caused concerns that Beijing's real motive might be to use the roads as invasion routes to take over the country.