
There was something chilling, and, oddly enough, almost reassuringly familiar, about the threats brandished by Beijing and its proxies against Singapore in early October over its stance on the South China Sea.
Major Jin Yinan, a professor at the military's National Defense University in Beijing, demanded that the city state "pay the price for seriously damaging China's interests" for trying to add criticism of Beijing to a communique issued at the September summit of non-aligned countries in Venezuela.