Canada

Canada has international commitments to patrol international waters

China claims a big part of international waters as their own so to legitimize their claim they are dumping sand in parts of the ocean to create islands and they defend it

Defending against international patrols is what these spats you see are

China is trying to big dick around the Pacific

I'm not following this closely at the moment, but I generally assume I'm not getting the full story whenever I see politically convenient narratives forming.

Some countries (such as Canada) tend to err on the side of caution in terms of not causing escalation or an international incident.

Others (such as China , Russia, N Korea) - knowing this - are slowly pushing towards "how much can we get away with, and if there's an incident we'll spin it to blame the other guy".

China has long been trying to expand their borders beyond internationally recognised territory, and rankles at other countries being in that air/sea space prevention them for just saying "this is mine now".

Passive-aggressive behavior is becoming actually-aggressive behaviour, likely resulting in either an incident where it results in lives lost either because it actually damages an aircraft or somebody shoots back, like what happened with Russia in Turkey.

china needs some proper ass clapping, than this shit will end immediately.

those communist countries think they can get away with everything nowadays.