Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Japanese troops yesterday that Japan would not tolerate the use of force to change the region’s “status quo,” comments likely to rile Beijing, which is locked in a long and bitter territorial dispute with Tokyo.

“Use of force for changing the status quo” is an expression often used by Japanese politicians and security experts to indirectly refer to what they see as China’s aggressive maritime expansion in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.