The CHN/ China thread - Page 7

3catcircus · 06-22-21, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moonlight

I met a couple of Iranians a long time ago who had migrated to England and their take on it was "It's not people who create wars but governments", so theirs your answer, remove the chest thumping governments whoever they are.

Yes, but governments are made up of people... No different than corporations who hide behind corporate personhood - both types of institutions need to have the *people* running them who make awful decisions be held accountable for those decisions far more often and with much harsher punishment.

Skybird · 06-27-21, 10:33 PM

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1...a-war-on-india

Quote:

China's border actions against India have been described as a "salami tactic". China seems to be seeking to dominate territory through incremental operations too small to attract international attention and not large enough to spark an actual war with India -- but sufficient to accumulate real results over time in the form of gained territory. It is similar to the tactic China has been using in the South China Sea.

Catfish · 07-06-21, 03:32 AM

"HK leader says 'ideologies' pose security risk, teenagers need to be monitored"
(Like in the west, when the young have new ideas (or left ones like justice and equality - gasp!) subdue them!

)

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...ed-2021-07-06/

I wonder when or if this kind of government in China will end. There is of course decade-long ideological party indoctrination, and Xi Ji Ping's "party" will be especially "careful" with the young to prevent uprising; but i take it that at some point oppression and surveillance will reach a point that anger and pressure cannot be controlled anymore.

On the other hand, a lot of chinese studying here see no problem with their government in China, one might say "they" only let out the most "adjusted" ones to study abroad, and then there is the fear to be called out by fellow chinese students, but it really looks as if this kind of indoctrination works, unfortunately. A lot see this kind of dictatorship as preferrable, and "superior".

Rockstar · 07-14-21, 08:47 AM

Skybird · 07-20-21, 06:59 AM

Latvia is the first European country and the first western country having the guts to officially open a Taiwanese embassy in its country, and under the name of "Taiwan".

This puts big countries like Germany to shame.

Taiwan has significantly contributed to the fight and the scientific research on Covid-19. They deserve formal recognition around which Western states and the UN try to weasel aroudn since so long. Appeasement and money grabbing still is put above the right for sovereignty of people. Recently, the weasling delayed deliveries of vaccines to Taiwan for months.

I would wish the US would do with Taiwan what they did in Israel: open formal diplomatic representations like they moved their embassy to Jerusalem (or has bidne reversed that? I honestly don't know, but could imagine it). China is the enemy here, not Taiwan. We must learn to play hard with chian anyway - they will not leave us another chance, but will push the whole world against the wall. Flowery language will not change that.

Skybird · 09-03-21, 07:46 PM

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/03/c...hnk/index.html

To me it looks as if China not only takes war into account, but actively wants it. They throw out a net of tripwires that make it more and more impossible to avoid them. Maybe they already made the active decision in favour for war and just maneuver a bit more in a bid for history afterwards not calling them out as the ones who have started it - or in a bid to rally their people around their war plan.

But when you provoke it, then you nevertheless have started it.

Rockstar · 09-03-21, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Beijing wants foreign vessels to give notice before entering "Chinese territorial waters," providing maritime authorities with detailed information -- including the ship's name, call sign, current position, next port of call and estimated time of arrival.

Cuba wanted the U.S. to do the same when we transited the OBC. We never did then either. lol

I remember one night we wandered into Cuban territorial waters. Then right at sunrise we got chased out by an OSA-II missile boat. Just as soon as we crossed back over into international waters two heavily armed helicopters came out of nowhere. We were wondering where the heck they came from. Thankfully they were ours and that missile boat immediately turned around. I got pictures of that OSA-II somewhere I should try and dig’em up.

mapuc · 09-04-21, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/03/c...hnk/index.html

To me it looks as if China not only takes war into account, but actively wants it. They throw out a net of tripwires that make it more and more impossible to avoid them. Maybe they already made the active decision in favour for war and just maneuver a bit more in a bid for history afterwards not calling them out as the ones who have started it - or in a bid to rally their people around their war plan.

But when you provoke it, then you nevertheless have started it.

I read the article and are astonish that China demands these thing in areas where they has not right to claim these thing.

Markus

Skybird · 09-04-21, 10:39 AM

China runs a pirate fleet that it calls its coast guard, and it consists of hundreds of cutters and boats. This armada haunts fishermen and harasses them all across the South China Sea and even within 12nm territorial waters of other nations.

Its bullying of its utmost possible maximum. It ruins non-Chinese fishermen all across the place. China locks them out of even their nation'S territorial waters. And nobody dares to confront them over it. As I said: hundreds of cutters and coast guard boats. Hundreds. They are literally EVERYWHERE. They are armed and they use force against unarmed civil fisherboats, if need be. Even inside other nations' territorial 12nm coast waters, along islands, nation's mainland coast, and atolls.

The US navy in no way is able to deal with this. And so it even does not try. It cannot cope with the sheer numbers.

Overwhelming numbers have their own charms.

mapuc · 09-04-21, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

China runs a pirate fleet that it calls its coast guard, and it consists of hundreds of cutters and boats. This armada haunts fishermen and harasses them all across the South China Sea and even within 12nm territorial waters of other nations.

Its bullying of its utmost possible maximum. It ruins non-Chinese fishermen all across the place. China locks them out of even their nation'S territorial waters. And nobody dares to confront them over it. As I said: hundreds of cutters and coast guard boats. Hundreds. They are literally EVERYWHERE. They are armed and they use force against unarmed civil fisherboats, if need be. Even inside other nations' territorial 12nm coast waters, along islands, nation's mainland coast, and atolls.

The US navy in no way is able to deal with this. And so it even does not try. It cannot cope with the sheer numbers.

Overwhelming numbers have their own charms.

As you said-They are asking for it- A war which is unavoidable if China continues this behaviour in the South China Sea.

Markus

Buddahaid · 09-09-21, 09:12 PM

I don't think China wants a war but they will push the limits just like achild pushes the limits. The US still operates on the idea that it has to have a strong enough military to defeat it's two largest rivals.

Anyway what I wanted to post was this assesment of the PLA aircraft.

Skybird · 09-24-21, 08:27 AM

Are China's bullied neighbours stronger than we think? The author claims so.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/18...y-geopolitics/

Skybird · 09-24-21, 08:33 AM

^Ah, paywall alarm, sorry, I did not immediately realise that. Use this Google-translation from the German translation instead:

All over the Indo-Pacific countries are building up their defenses. It is in response to China's massive expansion policy.

In the Indo-Pacific, the Chinese People's Liberation Army is surrounded by emerging competitors.
The countries of the Indo-Pacific region are able to protect themselves against Chinese aggression.
In response to China's policy of expansion, Japan, India and South Korea, among others, raised their attention.
This article is available for the first time in German - it was first published by Foreign Policy magazine on March 18, 2021.

Beijing - For the past 20 years, China has got its way in almost every dispute with neighboring countries. With its advance in the Himalayas, Southeast Asia, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea, China has become the main threat in a wide arcuate area of the Indo-Pacific. Beijing's defense spending is now more than six times what it was at the beginning of the millennium, according to independent estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI). Over the past twenty years, China has climbed from sixth place in the world to second in total defense spending - a spectacular increase.

Of course, this worries China's neighboring countries. And it is just as natural that these neighbors will now take action in response.
Protective wall against China's expansionism: People's Liberation Army in the Indo-Pacific surrounded by competitors

If China's closest neighbors are the potential partners that US President Joe Biden is eager to work with, they are hardly countries that need US encouragement to step up its vigilance towards China. A look across China's borders shows that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is facing established and emerging military competitors on all sides. Even assuming rapprochement between Russia and China - a prospect that is always more imminent than actually happening - China faces challenges throughout the Indo-Pacific. The countries that stretch from India in the southwest to Japan in the northeast would form an effective barrier against Chinese expansionism even without the express encouragement and support of the US.

The arched Indo-Pacific region is strongest at the ends and weakest at the center. Japan's Self-Defense Forces are highly regarded for technology and operational readiness. As a countermeasure to China's aircraft carrier construction program, Japan is converting two existing helicopter carriers into fixed-wing carriers. The Japanese aircraft carriers will be much smaller than the Chinese ones, but the fifth-generation F-35 stealth aircraft launched by Japanese aircraft carriers will have a significantly greater impact. In comparison, the PLA Navy's Shenyang J-15 is a less advanced fourth generation fighter aircraft that is facing serious technical problems.

Japan definitely has the resources and the technological know-how to cater for itself. At the other end of the Indo-Pacific region, India is often perceived as a relative weakling compared to China. Such assessments, however, are long out of date, if they were ever true. In 1962, China had conquered large parts of the Indian mountain area in a lightning-fast five-week war. But this victory had been the result of a surprise attack in peacetime against an unsuspecting friendly country. Since then, India has taken the old adage to heart: “Put me in there: Shame on you! Put me in twice: Shame on me! "
People's Republic of China: India has the upper hand on the Himalayan border - warfare at great heights

Despite China's massive military modernization, India is now likely to have the upper hand on the Himalayan border. For one thing, China's 1962 advances were deeply resented in India, but they moved the front line closer to India's supply bases and further away from China. What is less noticeable is that China's infrastructure improvements are juxtaposed with the mountain tunnels and all-weather roads built by India's Border Roads Organization (BRO). In a strategic area where logistics is everything, the tunnel construction of the BRO has enormously improved the ability of the Indian army to transport heavy equipment from lower-lying bases to the Indo-Chinese "Line of Actual Control" (LAC). Together with the extensive experience of fighting on glaciers and the harshness of the Indian Special Frontier Force (for which many Tibetans in exile were recruited), India has a compelling concept for warfare at great heights.

In addition, the Indian air forces have a major technical advantage over China's PLA: India's advanced air force bases are at an altitude of 3000 meters, which is very high, but not nearly as high as those of China. Unlike India, however, China has no low-altitude bases in the region. That makes a huge difference, as China's planes have to drop up to half of their missiles and fuel to take off in the very thin air of the Tibetan highlands. Coupled with the acquisition of top-of-the-line French Rafale fighter jets, the potential modernization of Russia's Sukhoi SU 30 squadrons, and the imminent delivery of advanced Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems, the Indian Air Force could soon have absolute air superiority across the LAC. The multi-purpose fighter Tejas, developed by India itself, is just the icing on the cake.

Further east, China's 2,100-kilometer-long border with Myanmar is so unsafe that China - perhaps inspired by former US President Donald Trump - is building a 3-meter-high wall to seal it off. The military takeover in Myanmar, widely perceived in the West as useful to China, was indeed a setback: China was particularly close to Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and now sees its position in the country through both the military and the military also threatened by the street protests. China has long been accused of supporting separatist rebels in Myanmar; the overthrow of the civilian government led by Suu Kyi by the military could have been an anti-China as well as an anti-democracy coup.

Vietnam, which like India was once the victim of a Chinese surprise attack, has had a bad relationship with its communist big brother since China's invasion in 1979. Vietnam's defense budget is relatively small today, but the country has focused its investments on coastal defense. Based on China's "Anti-Access / Area Denial" (A2 / AD) strategy of the early 2000s, the country invested heavily in anti-ship missiles and, according to ongoing rumors, is about to acquire the joint Russian-Indian BrahMos, a supersonic Ramjet cruise missile that is said to be the fastest weapon of its kind in the world. So as China moves from A2 / AD to power projection strategies in the South China Sea, Vietnam is developing its own A2 / AD capabilities to deprive the PLA Navy of the ability to operate in the area.
Indo-Pacific: Philippines squinting at the USA - Taiwan is another chess spot for China

The islands are the weak points in the Indo-Pacific. The Philippines, which under their capricious President Rodrigo Duterte tossed about a possible Chinese alliance, are a wild card. But after four years of sharp anti-US rhetoric, Duterte is facing mounting backlash from his largely pro-American public. The country's armed forces are also believed to favor close ties with the United States. Like its Vietnamese counterpart, the Philippine Navy is interested in purchasing BrahMos anti-ship missiles as part of a deal that is much closer to being concluded than the one between India and Vietnam. In another A2 / AD development, the only realistic target for these missiles would be the PLA's Chinese Navy operating in the South China Sea.

Taiwan is another weak point. The problem here is not a lack of determination - the repression in Hong Kong only strengthened Taiwanese opinion against China - but an unwillingness to make the necessary sacrifices. Taiwan's defense spending is just 1.7 percent of its gross domestic product - a very small proportion for a country that is constantly faced with the threat of invasion by its much larger neighbor. Although Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has planned a significant increase in the defense budget in 2021, the budget is still described as inadequate by US officials. Taiwan has announced the purchase of 66 reliable F-16 fighter jets but is in dire need of Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Patriot anti-aircraft missiles. The procurement programs for both are affected by budget constraints.

Finally, while the threat posed by the north is primarily at issue, South Korea has announced its own programs for aircraft carriers and jet fighters. Some commentators have labeled them national vanity projects. But they might as well be described as efforts to propel South Korea's already formidable defense industry into the information age. As aircraft fuselages and airframes become commodities, South Korea's most important domestic value-add for its fighter aircraft will be avionics such as aeronautics. B. be radar and guidance systems. The country's planned aircraft carrier will be equipped with US F-35 jets and South Korean electronic warfare.
China in the Indo-Pacific: People's Liberation Army confronts India, South Korea and Japan in the air

If you put it all together, there are three aircraft carriers of the PLA Navy - one of which is an old Soviet fuselage, the second an improved copy of the first, and the third an experimental Chinese design - two Japanese and one South Korean aircraft carriers equipped with F-35s , as well as two Indian aircraft carriers opposite. And that before the US Navy “supercarriers” stationed in Japan are included. In the air, China faces the consistently modern air forces of India, South Korea and Japan, and faces growing A2 / AD threats from countries in between. Further afield, the Australian armed forces could potentially play a supportive role if Canberra has the political will to do so. Overall, there are still weak spots in the Indo-Pacific region, but the prognosis for China does not look good.

The overarching lesson from all of this is that the US doesn't need to keep the Indo-Pacific safe to keep the region “free and open” or even “resilient and inclusive”, as the four Quad Group leaders said at their summit last week decided. All Washington has to do is create a security framework into which other countries can contribute their own efforts. You could do this through the quad mechanism. Yet that would require the Quad group to focus on maritime security rather than climate change and the coronavirus. But even without a defense-oriented quad group, the countries of the Indo-Pacific region are quite capable of protecting themselves against Chinese aggression. The United States may provide tools, technology, and training, but China's neighbors can and should take the lead in keeping their own neighborhood safe.

by Salvatore Babones

Salvatore Babones is a Foreign Policy Columnist and Associate Researcher at the Center for Independent Studies, Sydney.Twitter: @sbabones

This article was first published in English on March 18, 2021 in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” - as part of a cooperation, the translation is now also available to Merkur.de readers.

Jimbuna · 09-24-21, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

Are China's bullied neighbours stronger than we think?

Only if they all united together would they have a chance and I can't see that happening.

August · 09-24-21, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Only if they all united together would they have a chance and I can't see that happening.

I don't think they all would need to be united but certainly the bigger the block the more formidable especially if we back them up.

07-06-21, 03:32 AM	#93
Catfish Dipped Squirrel Operative Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: ..where the ocean meets the sky Posts: 16,895 Downloads: 38 Uploads: 0	"HK leader says 'ideologies' pose security risk, teenagers need to be monitored" (Like in the west, when the young have new ideas (or left ones like justice and equality - gasp!) subdue them! ) https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...ed-2021-07-06/ I wonder when or if this kind of government in China will end. There is of course decade-long ideological party indoctrination, and Xi Ji Ping's "party" will be especially "careful" with the young to prevent uprising; but i take it that at some point oppression and surveillance will reach a point that anger and pressure cannot be controlled anymore. On the other hand, a lot of chinese studying here see no problem with their government in China, one might say "they" only let out the most "adjusted" ones to study abroad, and then there is the fear to be called out by fellow chinese students, but it really looks as if this kind of indoctrination works, unfortunately. A lot see this kind of dictatorship as preferrable, and "superior". __________________ >^..^<)))>{ All generalizations are wrong. Last edited by Catfish; 07-06-21 at 04:53 AM.*

07-14-21, 08:47 AM	#94
Rockstar Rear Admiral Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Zendia Bar & Grill Posts: 11,830 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	__________________ Guardian of the honey and nuts Let's assume I'm right, it'll save time.

07-20-21, 06:59 AM	#95
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,486 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	Latvia is the first European country and the first western country having the guts to officially open a Taiwanese embassy in its country, and under the name of "Taiwan". This puts big countries like Germany to shame. Taiwan has significantly contributed to the fight and the scientific research on Covid-19. They deserve formal recognition around which Western states and the UN try to weasel aroudn since so long. Appeasement and money grabbing still is put above the right for sovereignty of people. Recently, the weasling delayed deliveries of vaccines to Taiwan for months. I would wish the US would do with Taiwan what they did in Israel: open formal diplomatic representations like they moved their embassy to Jerusalem (or has bidne reversed that? I honestly don't know, but could imagine it). China is the enemy here, not Taiwan. We must learn to play hard with chian anyway - they will not leave us another chance, but will push the whole world against the wall. Flowery language will not change that. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

09-03-21, 07:46 PM	#96
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,486 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/03/c...hnk/index.html To me it looks as if China not only takes war into account, but actively wants it. They throw out a net of tripwires that make it more and more impossible to avoid them. Maybe they already made the active decision in favour for war and just maneuver a bit more in a bid for history afterwards not calling them out as the ones who have started it - or in a bid to rally their people around their war plan. But when you provoke it, then you nevertheless have started it. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

09-04-21, 10:39 AM	#99
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,486 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	China runs a pirate fleet that it calls its coast guard, and it consists of hundreds of cutters and boats. This armada haunts fishermen and harasses them all across the South China Sea and even within 12nm territorial waters of other nations. Its bullying of its utmost possible maximum. It ruins non-Chinese fishermen all across the place. China locks them out of even their nation'S territorial waters. And nobody dares to confront them over it. As I said: hundreds of cutters and coast guard boats. Hundreds. They are literally EVERYWHERE. They are armed and they use force against unarmed civil fisherboats, if need be. Even inside other nations' territorial 12nm coast waters, along islands, nation's mainland coast, and atolls. The US navy in no way is able to deal with this. And so it even does not try. It cannot cope with the sheer numbers. *Overwhelming* numbers have their own charms. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

09-09-21, 09:12 PM	#101
Buddahaid Shark above Space Chicken Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 8,555 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 0	I don't think China wants a war but they will push the limits just like achild pushes the limits. The US still operates on the idea that it has to have a strong enough military to defeat it's two largest rivals. Anyway what I wanted to post was this assesment of the PLA aircraft. __________________ "However vast the darkness, we must provide our own light." Stanley Kubrick "Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming." David Bowie

09-24-21, 08:27 AM	#102
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,486 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	Are China's bullied neighbours stronger than we think? The author claims so. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/18...y-geopolitics/ __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

09-24-21, 08:33 AM	#103
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,486 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	^Ah, paywall alarm, sorry, I did not immediately realise that. Use this Google-translation from the German translation instead: All over the Indo-Pacific countries are building up their defenses. It is in response to China's massive expansion policy. In the Indo-Pacific, the Chinese People's Liberation Army is surrounded by emerging competitors. The countries of the Indo-Pacific region are able to protect themselves against Chinese aggression. In response to China's policy of expansion, Japan, India and South Korea, among others, raised their attention. This article is available for the first time in German - it was first published by Foreign Policy magazine on March 18, 2021. Beijing - For the past 20 years, China has got its way in almost every dispute with neighboring countries. With its advance in the Himalayas, Southeast Asia, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea, China has become the main threat in a wide arcuate area of the Indo-Pacific. Beijing's defense spending is now more than six times what it was at the beginning of the millennium, according to independent estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI). Over the past twenty years, China has climbed from sixth place in the world to second in total defense spending - a spectacular increase. Of course, this worries China's neighboring countries. And it is just as natural that these neighbors will now take action in response. Protective wall against China's expansionism: People's Liberation Army in the Indo-Pacific surrounded by competitors If China's closest neighbors are the potential partners that US President Joe Biden is eager to work with, they are hardly countries that need US encouragement to step up its vigilance towards China. A look across China's borders shows that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is facing established and emerging military competitors on all sides. Even assuming rapprochement between Russia and China - a prospect that is always more imminent than actually happening - China faces challenges throughout the Indo-Pacific. The countries that stretch from India in the southwest to Japan in the northeast would form an effective barrier against Chinese expansionism even without the express encouragement and support of the US. The arched Indo-Pacific region is strongest at the ends and weakest at the center. Japan's Self-Defense Forces are highly regarded for technology and operational readiness. As a countermeasure to China's aircraft carrier construction program, Japan is converting two existing helicopter carriers into fixed-wing carriers. The Japanese aircraft carriers will be much smaller than the Chinese ones, but the fifth-generation F-35 stealth aircraft launched by Japanese aircraft carriers will have a significantly greater impact. In comparison, the PLA Navy's Shenyang J-15 is a less advanced fourth generation fighter aircraft that is facing serious technical problems. Japan definitely has the resources and the technological know-how to cater for itself. At the other end of the Indo-Pacific region, India is often perceived as a relative weakling compared to China. Such assessments, however, are long out of date, if they were ever true. In 1962, China had conquered large parts of the Indian mountain area in a lightning-fast five-week war. But this victory had been the result of a surprise attack in peacetime against an unsuspecting friendly country. Since then, India has taken the old adage to heart: “Put me in there: Shame on you! Put me in twice: Shame on me! " People's Republic of China: India has the upper hand on the Himalayan border - warfare at great heights Despite China's massive military modernization, India is now likely to have the upper hand on the Himalayan border. For one thing, China's 1962 advances were deeply resented in India, but they moved the front line closer to India's supply bases and further away from China. What is less noticeable is that China's infrastructure improvements are juxtaposed with the mountain tunnels and all-weather roads built by India's Border Roads Organization (BRO). In a strategic area where logistics is everything, the tunnel construction of the BRO has enormously improved the ability of the Indian army to transport heavy equipment from lower-lying bases to the Indo-Chinese "Line of Actual Control" (LAC). Together with the extensive experience of fighting on glaciers and the harshness of the Indian Special Frontier Force (for which many Tibetans in exile were recruited), India has a compelling concept for warfare at great heights. In addition, the Indian air forces have a major technical advantage over China's PLA: India's advanced air force bases are at an altitude of 3000 meters, which is very high, but not nearly as high as those of China. Unlike India, however, China has no low-altitude bases in the region. That makes a huge difference, as China's planes have to drop up to half of their missiles and fuel to take off in the very thin air of the Tibetan highlands. Coupled with the acquisition of top-of-the-line French Rafale fighter jets, the potential modernization of Russia's Sukhoi SU 30 squadrons, and the imminent delivery of advanced Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems, the Indian Air Force could soon have absolute air superiority across the LAC. The multi-purpose fighter Tejas, developed by India itself, is just the icing on the cake. Further east, China's 2,100-kilometer-long border with Myanmar is so unsafe that China - perhaps inspired by former US President Donald Trump - is building a 3-meter-high wall to seal it off. The military takeover in Myanmar, widely perceived in the West as useful to China, was indeed a setback: China was particularly close to Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and now sees its position in the country through both the military and the military also threatened by the street protests. China has long been accused of supporting separatist rebels in Myanmar; the overthrow of the civilian government led by Suu Kyi by the military could have been an anti-China as well as an anti-democracy coup. Vietnam, which like India was once the victim of a Chinese surprise attack, has had a bad relationship with its communist big brother since China's invasion in 1979. Vietnam's defense budget is relatively small today, but the country has focused its investments on coastal defense. Based on China's "Anti-Access / Area Denial" (A2 / AD) strategy of the early 2000s, the country invested heavily in anti-ship missiles and, according to ongoing rumors, is about to acquire the joint Russian-Indian BrahMos, a supersonic Ramjet cruise missile that is said to be the fastest weapon of its kind in the world. So as China moves from A2 / AD to power projection strategies in the South China Sea, Vietnam is developing its own A2 / AD capabilities to deprive the PLA Navy of the ability to operate in the area. Indo-Pacific: Philippines squinting at the USA - Taiwan is another chess spot for China The islands are the weak points in the Indo-Pacific. The Philippines, which under their capricious President Rodrigo Duterte tossed about a possible Chinese alliance, are a wild card. But after four years of sharp anti-US rhetoric, Duterte is facing mounting backlash from his largely pro-American public. The country's armed forces are also believed to favor close ties with the United States. Like its Vietnamese counterpart, the Philippine Navy is interested in purchasing BrahMos anti-ship missiles as part of a deal that is much closer to being concluded than the one between India and Vietnam. In another A2 / AD development, the only realistic target for these missiles would be the PLA's Chinese Navy operating in the South China Sea. Taiwan is another weak point. The problem here is not a lack of determination - the repression in Hong Kong only strengthened Taiwanese opinion against China - but an unwillingness to make the necessary sacrifices. Taiwan's defense spending is just 1.7 percent of its gross domestic product - a very small proportion for a country that is constantly faced with the threat of invasion by its much larger neighbor. Although Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has planned a significant increase in the defense budget in 2021, the budget is still described as inadequate by US officials. Taiwan has announced the purchase of 66 reliable F-16 fighter jets but is in dire need of Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Patriot anti-aircraft missiles. The procurement programs for both are affected by budget constraints. Finally, while the threat posed by the north is primarily at issue, South Korea has announced its own programs for aircraft carriers and jet fighters. Some commentators have labeled them national vanity projects. But they might as well be described as efforts to propel South Korea's already formidable defense industry into the information age. As aircraft fuselages and airframes become commodities, South Korea's most important domestic value-add for its fighter aircraft will be avionics such as aeronautics. B. be radar and guidance systems. The country's planned aircraft carrier will be equipped with US F-35 jets and South Korean electronic warfare. China in the Indo-Pacific: People's Liberation Army confronts India, South Korea and Japan in the air If you put it all together, there are three aircraft carriers of the PLA Navy - one of which is an old Soviet fuselage, the second an improved copy of the first, and the third an experimental Chinese design - two Japanese and one South Korean aircraft carriers equipped with F-35s , as well as two Indian aircraft carriers opposite. And that before the US Navy “supercarriers” stationed in Japan are included. In the air, China faces the consistently modern air forces of India, South Korea and Japan, and faces growing A2 / AD threats from countries in between. Further afield, the Australian armed forces could potentially play a supportive role if Canberra has the political will to do so. Overall, there are still weak spots in the Indo-Pacific region, but the prognosis for China does not look good. The overarching lesson from all of this is that the US doesn't need to keep the Indo-Pacific safe to keep the region “free and open” or even “resilient and inclusive”, as the four Quad Group leaders said at their summit last week decided. All Washington has to do is create a security framework into which other countries can contribute their own efforts. You could do this through the quad mechanism. Yet that would require the Quad group to focus on maritime security rather than climate change and the coronavirus. But even without a defense-oriented quad group, the countries of the Indo-Pacific region are quite capable of protecting themselves against Chinese aggression. The United States may provide tools, technology, and training, but China's neighbors can and should take the lead in keeping their own neighborhood safe. by Salvatore Babones Salvatore Babones is a Foreign Policy Columnist and Associate Researcher at the Center for Independent Studies, Sydney.Twitter: @sbabones This article was first published in English on March 18, 2021 in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” - as part of a cooperation, the translation is now also available to Merkur.de readers. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.