Seeing modern China as a monolith is not a useful way of looking at things.

It is good to bear in mind that China is as big as Europe, far more populous, at least as old if not older, and almost as diverse. In other words, comparing China to other countries sometimes leads us into false analogies. In addition, because China has a nominally Communist government and, as a result of not having learned much from our Cold War experiences, we tend to think of Communism as a single entity, so we suppose that China is ruled by the iron hand of a small group of senior Communists in Beijing whose word is law.

Nothing could be further from the truth. China has evolved greatly since the death of Mao Zedong, but in some important ways it has not evolved from the imperial China of centuries past. China, as it has always been, is more than a country — it is a continental civilization held together at the center by mechanisms of balance plus negotiation plus brute force, none of which conclusively trumps the other. As foreign countries and corporations will tell you, they do not "negotiate with China," they "bargain with many Chinas" on a number of different levels.

The current conflict in what the Chinese call "the South China Sea" —and its neighbors call by different names, such as the "East Sea" — is a good case in point ("China to begin deep water drilling in disputed sea," Star-Advertiser, May 18). As we speak, vessels of the Philippine Coast Guard and the Peoples’ Republic of China Fisheries Protection Service are at a standoff over a few pieces of rock call Scarborough Shoals. The Philippines’ newspapers are full of articles decrying Chinese imperialism, while Chinese blogs denounce the Philippines as deluded interlopers on "historic" Chinese territory. And things are heating up diplomatically: Vietnam, frequently at odds with China for the past thousand years, is siding with the Philippines, its ASEAN partner. Other ASEAN countries may become involved, too.

The problem is that Scarbourough Shoals is less than 150 miles from the Philippines and more than 500 miles from the nearest point in China. Tensions could escalate into overt shooting and that would not be to anyone’s advantage. Is Beijing seeking confrontation of this sort?

The government in Beijing probably isn’t looking to start a war, but there are many regional Chinese actors and the various power and interest groups in China who seek to profit from brewing up nationalist fervor and simultaneously boosting their budgets "for national security." Meanwhile, China’s central government is deeply concerned to preserve its growing economy by establishing control over available sources of energy, and it believes that the South China Sea sits over millions of barrels of oil yet to be exploited. So Beijing is "forked" between its thirst for oil and its inability to completely control the multitude of domestic power and interest groups clamoring for influence, funding and status, who are using the conflict off China’s southern coasts for their own ends.

Unfortunately, Washington risks being "forked" as well. On the one hand, the United States values good relations with China as our major Pacific trading partner. On the other, the Obama administration has shifted to Asia as a primary defense focus and we have mutual defense treaties with some of the nations on the other side of the conflict, such as the Philippines. If we cannot help them in this conflict, trust in our commitments will significantly diminish.

As an old curse has it, "May you live in interesting times." Times in this region of the world are getting more interesting by the day.