China calls last weekend’s bumping of a Philippine resupply vessel by one of its coast guard vessels a “slight collision”. The Philippine coast guard commander says the ensuing damage to his ship was “more than a scratch”.

For months, this was the precise worry: that the threatening manoeuvres at sea and in the air that have set China against a host of other nations – the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Canada and the United States – would one day lead to a dire situation in which things swiftly spin out of control, with far-reaching consequences.