CANBERRA – The South China Sea – long regarded, together with the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula, as one of East Asia’s three major flashpoints – is making waves again. China’s announcement of a troop deployment to the Paracel Islands follows a month in which competing territorial claimants heightened their rhetoric, China’s naval presence in disputed areas became more visible, and the Chinese divided the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose foreign ministers could not agree on a communiqué for the first time in 45 years.