Golly

Writing an article about a major East Asian crisis - with no mention of "China" or "Chinese" - is a stretch.

All of the opponents of China are mentioned, again and again.

But then again the "About the Author" description mentions the author is "Now in China,"

When in China one needs to be careful what one writes, whats down is up. Or maybe its an influence piece cleared with Beijing's Foreign Ministry?

Totally agree, I noticed that weird omission.
There's quite a lot of tension in Asia that's directly attributable to China in one way or another, one only needs to look at the South China Sea situation for that to be obvious.
China is also doing what the Yanks used to do, wandering around the world throwing money at little places for commercial gain, and long-term political advantage.
Yet this gets almost no media or social coverage in the West, I'm curious about that, aren't you?