A new slant on RIMPAC Naval politics/The Fight To Control The South China Sea

[Jimbuna]

I suspect the current POTUS reaction will be almost identical to other area hotspots during his tenure which in all fairness amount to very little.

Now if Trump were to be the next POTUS, would we see the creation of islands cropping up next to those the Chinese are creating?

[mapuc]

My best guess is Trump would build walls around each of these Chinese island and thereafter demand The Chinese to pay what they cost.

Back to business thinking of another thread

If this should develop into some kind of Conflict between Chinese and USA, Japan and maybe some other country in that area, I could very well imagine, NK trying to do something "not so clever" against SK.


Markus

[Commander Wallace]

An International Tribunal has ruled China does not have any rights to justify it's claims to an important strategic and economic waterway. China has positioned advanced weaponry on man made Islands as garrisons. China has laid claims to a great deal of the South China Sea and has tried to set up exclusion and identification zones.

The ruling was strongly in favor of Philippines claims.

" Quote "
Some $5 trillion in commerce, roughly one third of global trade, flow through the waters of the South China Sea every year, while its fisheries account for 12 percent of the global catch and significant oil and gas reserves are thought to exist under the sea floor. Yet the waters are some of the most fiercely disputed in the world, with claims to various parts staked by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

The United States has already conducted several “freedom of navigation” exercises in the South China Sea, sending warships within 12 nautical miles of islands, reefs and rocks controlled by China and other claimants. It is also rebuilding military ties with the Philippines. China cites this as evidence that it is President Obama’s actions — not its island-building – that are responsible for militarizing the region.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...5b1_story.html

[Aktungbby]

Moderator: please move to the 'appropriate' thread http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=214616

[Skybird]

Ten years ago I thought that China would stick to its somewhat non-expansive tradition of foreign policies and would not militarily expand. I ruled out a chance for a major US-China war, therefore.

However, back then I made one mistake: I did not take into account their claim for historically claimed grounds and territories, that is so absurd to me like Italy claiming territories on the grounds of the widest expansion of Imperial Rome. I thus failed to take such a thinking into account.

Today I think that there will be a next great international war, a real major one, within this century, and that the waterways near China and the ressources in the disputed sea areas will be the reason for it. The major battlefields will be the seas, but the cyberspace as well.

And I fear the US is not on the right way to win it. It gets outnumbered, technology gaps narrow down, and the Americans for my taste base far too much on the WWII concpetion of aircraft carriers. But their untouchability I compare to that of the German U-Boats in the late stage of WWII when they were no longer the hunters, but the hunted. Militaries tend to plan the next war in the fashion they had won the last war, and that all too often is the recipe for getting defeated. In other words: aircraft carriers today are more political weapons and weapons for striking against weak and inferior enemies - not a power of your own strength and calibre.

I would not be surprised if autonomous drones as weapon platforms play the decisive role in such a war. There may be ethical implicaitons - but in military logic making drones autonomous is the logical and necessary next step.

Hope is that China continues to become a High-Tech nation - and by that becoming as vulnerable and dependent as Western high tech nations are, so that just a few swift blows to the economic infrastructure can spell decisive desaster. A heavyweight boxing fight, so to speak, where just one blow can knock the other out. You rarely have that in lighter weight classes.

Until then, other things, namely the crisis of debts and paper currencies, will continue to have a forming effect on how that war will be fought, and how well or ill prepared the US will be.

I assume that by then Europe will be militarily so impotent that it will play no role in a China-America war. Thinking about British and French navies.

Hope I am already dead when that war happens. When the end of your life knocks on your door, last thing you want needing to witness, is such a disaster.

[Jimbuna]

As has already been explained to the world by China, they would not and do not recognise the decision...

"China's territorial sovereignty and marine rights in the South China Sea will not be affected by the so-called Philippines South China Sea ruling in any way," said Chinese President Xi Jinping.
He said China was "determined to maintain peace and stability" and was committed to resolving disputes "through negotiations based on respects to historical facts and according to international laws".
China's state news agency Xinhua said that "as the panel has no jurisdiction, its decision is naturally null and void".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-36771749

So what next, similar sanctions as those used against Russia over Crimea?

[Oberon]

Here's a bit of disturbing reading from the Chinese News Service three years ago:

http://info.wenweipo.com/index.php?a...s-itemid-62404

But since only a handful of people here can read Mandarin (and I'm not one of them), here's a summary:

http://www.ibtimes.com/china-engage-...rnment-chinese

[mapuc]

When I heard this earlier today and the Chinese response I couldn't help thinking

If an ordinary person gets some injunction he or she better follow them or those. If your are a country a superpower like China you can decline these injunction and keep on with your business.

When will the other countries in that area draw a line in the sand/water and say enough back down ?

Of course they will not do this if they hadn't USA backing them up.

The Future of American politics will decide how much USA will engage in that area-That is - What will the next President of USA prioritize what foreign policy concerns
Markus

[Skybird]

What they should or want do - and what they can do, are two different things, mapuc.

We are talking about a major scale war between two of the three most powerful military powers on this planet. Plus additional powers.

And yes, if things slide very badly, it can turn into a nuclear exchange.

[Oberon]

It's a tricky one, because they clearly want to flex their muscles in the Eastern Pacific, but they're still racing to catch up with the US in terms of naval power, which limits quite a bit of their territorial ambitions, particularly in regards to Taiwan and the South China Sea.
At some point there will come a time when the PLAN will be ready to take on the USN, I doubt it'll be this side of 2020, but it is going to happen.
By this point Japan will have militarised, and it will be racing to produce a nuclear weapon, it won't take Japan long to make one, it has the facilities in place, and at this point things start to get very complicated and the likelihood of nuclear war gets very near to 1, because although the US might be reluctant to go nuclear on events on the other side of the Pacific, to the Japanese it's on their doorstep and they are under no pretenses that given half the chance the PRC would flatten Japan and feel no remorse about it.
At this point, if Japan and the PRC exchange, then depending on who fired first, the US may well decide to switch to tactical weapons to hit PLAN fleets and facilities, the PRC will probably retaliate by nuking Hawaii, and we're vaulting up the escalation ladder towards a bad conclusion.

There are a lot of factors, and to be honest the scenario above is a bad case scenario (although they seem to be the rage in 2016) and the PRC may well decide to bring Taiwan in through a less militaristic approach, because to be honest, invading Taiwan will not be an easy task for the PRC, not even on the other side of 2020, and the last thing the PRC wants to do is to capture a burning wreck of an island which will sink their economy to try to fix it. If they can take Taiwan with all of its economy intact then that will be much better for them, and it's a route they're far more likely to try to take, unless...of course...someone pushes them into a corner.

If the Chinese economy should tank, if some kind of trade war breaks out which China loses, it may decide to take the military option in order to provide a war for the people to rally around, or the ruling government may be replaced by one that is more willing to use military force to solve the Taiwan issue. Either way, pushing China into a corner....not wise.

I think that if given the option not to go to war, then they would choose it, but if there is more to gain through war, then China will go to war.

[Aktungbby]

JUST to clarify the present situation:

[Onkel Neal]

The judges have spoken: China has no legal basis for its claims to sovereignty over the South China Sea. China's "nine-dash line" territorial claims, which cover most of the South China Sea, will not be recognised under international law.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...105126859.html

[Aktungbby]

^MY god! your citing from Aljazeera...and driving a truck! (that's not Nice!)MODERATOR! oh wait a sec....

The views expressed in this article are the author's own (Salvatore Babones ) and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

http://www.aljazeera.com/profile/salvatore-babones.html of particular interest for China's big island push imho:

It doesn't take an advanced degree in mathematics to figure out that if budget commitments are growing at double-digit rates while the economy is growing at single-digit rates, something has to give. (every other country's fishing rights!!??) That something is the fiscal deficit. China is going into debt - in a serious way.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/china-economic-crisis-coming-160111090000623.html OH god! now I'm quoting Al Jazeera too!

[Jimbuna]

I think the fundamental question that must now be asked is....who and what is anyone going to do about it?

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

I think the fundamental question that must now be asked is....who and what is anyone going to do about it?

I suspect that the cork in the Chinese bottle will be Taiwan and the US will go in at some point in its customary style; In the guise of a 'coalition', actually an old Roman political ploy-tactic, with VietNam as a very strong ally. She has defeated China previously and is a barrier to the south. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2419335#post2419335 All the nations in the region from Japan and South Korea around to an increasingly aggressive India, wealthy Brunei, form a necessary geographic barrier to Sino expansion... Not unlike England's own unique geographical position astride the European continent and the major navigable river outlets to the North Sea and beyond.