Beijing's response to Japan's new destroyer shows its authoritarian endgame in the South China Sea

"It's not a big deal that they have this ship," Veerle Nouwens, an Asia-Pacific expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told Business Insider. Japan already has an even more formidable aircraft carrying destroyer active in the region and "they're using it for military exchanges or diplomacy. That's effectively what it's doing by potentially going around to India, Sri Lanka, and Singapore."