Is China being over assertive?

The Western media has been drumming up this tune, that China is being over assertive and bullying its smaller neighbours. Really? China has been a victim of aggression for several centuries. Some of its territories are still in the hands of the colonialists. It suffered trade sanctions, economic embargoes, containment, threats of nuclear attacks, unfair trade practices, isolations etc etc. Then it wakes up one day and sees aggressive countries still conducting war games in its courtyards and backyards. And there are big powers forming military alliances at its front doors with its neighbours. And little upstarts also trying to claim its territories when the territories belong to China for centuries, centuries before these little upstart countries could call themselves countries. Is it wrong for China to drive away the bullies and retake what historically belonged to China? Turn it the other way round, how would the Western countries react if China were to form military alliances with their immediate neighbours, conduct war games in the Carribeans or the Mediterraneans, send spy planes across Europe and the USA? What or how would the West responds or reacts? How would the Americans and Europeans react if China were to incite their neighbours to champion their rights? China should work with the Red Indians and aborigines to defend their rights, reclaim ownership of their land, and ask the perdatangs to go home to Europe. Would that be seen as being assertive? Is reclaiming their rights and land from the robbers, yakuzas, gangsters and frivolous opportunists assertive? Is telling the marauding hordes of hyenas swarming around their homeland and territorial waters assertive?