Why does China have border disputes with almost every neighbouring country?

Henry Kissinger wrote a good book about Chinese strategy, "On China".

In it he illustrates the differences between Western (American) and Chinese foreign affairs by comparing the two games of Wei Qi (Go) and Chess.

In Chess the objective is to kill the King.  In Go the the objective is to surround your opponent without getting surrounded.  The way that these games are played offer insight on the geopolitical strategy employed by each country/civilization.

China is known to Chinese as "Middle Kingdom", which means relative to the rest of the world, China is the center.  When a stone is surrounded in Go it is captured.  For example:



Border disputes will inevitably arise when playing this game.

Chinese military strategy is not really about aggression, but more so about preventing/avoiding the above situation. 

US military strategy is equally aggressive, however, we look for checkmate situations (e.g. Desert Storm I & II - Kill the King).  In the short term this works, but in the long term there can be problems,  kill Saddam, kill Bin Laden, get ISIS.  

On the other hand, Chinese will bother their neighbors, but not take them over.  If barbarians invade China, they accept the barbarians and "surround" them with Chinese Culture so they assimilate (Yuan Dynasty).     

There is a common saying something like "They can play checkers and we will play chess.", however, when understanding the actions of China we need to think about different games altogether.