After people refer to my base rate, I need to clarify/correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_South_China_Sea_dispute searching for 'fire' finds 2 cases in 2005 and 2011. Depending on the starting year taken into account, this gives, e.g., {2005-2021: 2/16y = 0.125/y, for 6 months: 0.125/2 ≈ 6%/6months} or {last 20 years: 2/20/2 ≈ 5%/6months}. I'm aware that the time window is arbitrary. Now, looking closer and searching for more keywords (I didn't bother to read everything), there was another case in the 90s ('gun battle'). So, one may enlarge the time window, let's say {1990-2021: 3/31/2 ≈ 5%/6months}. So 5-6% is still a reasonable base rate, based on this bunch of information. Now given that China got stronger and increased military infrastructure and presence. For that reason, it seems reasonable to suppose that China might want to demonstrate its power (carefully), without starting a war maybe, and adjust the base rate up by a few percent. @Gandt @MullenAustin

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Gandt
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Thanks Jowa! I actually missed those incidents somehow... Valuable information.

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