When China earlier this week began operating the new lighthouse it has built on one of the artificial islands it has constructed in the South China Sea, it probably did not realise it would also illuminate the deepening tensions its policy of maritime expansion is creating in the region.

For, at a time when the world is mainly focused on the twin threats posed by Russia’s new spirit of military aggression and the rise of Islamic State (Isil), there is growing concern that not enough attention is being paid to a potentially far more worrying danger emerging from the South China Sea.