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What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

nytimes.com

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Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#111

Post by AnimalMuppet »

curiousjorge wrote: post #77

The question is, is President Xi willing to risk military conflict to enforce whatever new lines he draws on the map? I don't think he is. As we saw the air zone China drew that overlapped Korea, Japan and Taiwan, it was promptly ignored by all countries and when the US stealth bombers were flying China was silent . An actual combat that results in Chinese loss would be detrimental to the continuity of Xi's party and…

Mao had this approach: "Advance at the point of the bayonet. If you meet resistance, back off." That is, take whatever others won't actively defend, and keep taking until you run into something that they will.

This seems to still be China's approach, at least in this area.

Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#112

Post by cygwin98 »

run4yourlives2 wrote: post #97
cygwin98 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuban missile crisis in 1962?

There's a pretty big difference in China sending a couple of warships to the gulf and USSR setting up a nuclear missile base with missiles pointed at the US on Cuba.

Nuclear missles or "90000 tons of diplomacy" are both certain kinds of deterrence, nothing more, nothing less. If US does not have those carrier combat groups, China wouldn't care either.

Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#113

Post by khuey »

zaczac wrote: post #73
adventured wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn't lay claim to the Pacific Ocean, and it has a right to transit its navy in open waters. It does not make a habit of navigating its navy into other nation's waters without their permission. The US does not claim ownership over any part of the Gulf of Mexico that it doesn't blatantly have a right to, as this image makes very clear: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Te... The southe…

What if China ran their war ships into Mexico gulf just like U.S did in Southern China Sea?We shall think it is quiet fair because in the "public" ocean?

http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/china-is-spying-on-rimpac/

"“It has not entered the territorial seas of the U.S. and it is in accordance with international law regarding freedom of navigation,” Capt. James said in a statement released to the Wall Street Journal. He explained that the ship was in Hawaii’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The U.S. maintains that freedom of navigation for all international ships extend to countries’ EEZs, and it has long maintained ships inside China’s EEZ."

Thanks for playing.

Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#114

Post by ethbro »

cygwin98 wrote: post #90
adventured wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what would happen: the US would not freak out about it. Russia was just busy flying bombers 40 miles off the coast of California last week. Last time I checked, we haven't declared war on Russia for it. They regularly do the same thing with their navy in various ways, whether off the Atlantic or Pacific coast, or near Cuba / Florida waters.

Cuban missile crisis in 1962?

I'm going to sound like an apologist, but the Cold War nuclear miltary-political calculus was very different pre-ICMB+MAD on both sides of the Soviet-US split.

SLBMs were just being developed in the early 60s, and so Cuban-based missiles represented a novel, more credible first-strike threat given distance (~20 minutes flight time).

Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#115

Post by zorked »

yc1010 wrote: post #85
timiblossom wrote: post #33

The building to convert reef to island is one of the first steps to claim the entire Southeast-Asia sea by China. It will then have the self-declared ownership right to block all sea/air traffics through this region and bully other neighboring countries. Besides having a huge oil/gas reserve and fishes, in term of economic impact, this sea is as important as or more than Panama Canal or Suez Canal. A country with the…

If China block ships from the area it wont be too hard to block their ships from Panama and Suez canals and deny access to Americas Watch their economy crumble if they are prevented from selling this cheap knacks to the rest of the world. It be a stupid move and the Chinese are far from stupid unlike the the Russians who are doing their best to tick every checkbox on a rogue criminal state chalkboard

Why would Panama or Egypt want to block China?

Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#116

Post by honest_joe »

Xixi wrote: post #82
honest_joe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Japan has a dispute with China on other islands. I never said they would try to claim the spartlys. Heavy Japan alliance with Phillippines is unlikely (history, empire of japan, blah blah). It's not about anti-japanese sentiment here but more like japanese fear of revenge from chinese and maybe the right time to make a point. The more passive-aggressive China is the more likely it's that Korea and Japan will…

I quote you: "I predict Japan will try to push forward and claim the disputed islands with the support of uncle Sam." Which islands were you thinking about? Japan has three notable territorial conflicts: the Kuril islands with Russia (controlled by Russia), the Senkaku islands with China (controlled by Japan) and the Takeshima islands (controlled by Korea). Of these three conflicts the ones with Korea and Russia are…

They do not really control the senkaku islands. At least not from chinese POV :P

And yes Dokdo (Takeshima in Japan) is a big thing in Korea.

Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#117

Post by greenNote »

zaczac wrote: post #73
adventured wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn't lay claim to the Pacific Ocean, and it has a right to transit its navy in open waters. It does not make a habit of navigating its navy into other nation's waters without their permission. The US does not claim ownership over any part of the Gulf of Mexico that it doesn't blatantly have a right to, as this image makes very clear: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Te... The southe…

What if China ran their war ships into Mexico gulf just like U.S did in Southern China Sea?We shall think it is quiet fair because in the "public" ocean?

Russia and Venezuela had a joint military exercise in the Caribbean sea last year, it made the news, but not much else.

Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#118

Post by turar »

curiousjorge wrote: post #77

The question is, is President Xi willing to risk military conflict to enforce whatever new lines he draws on the map? I don't think he is. As we saw the air zone China drew that overlapped Korea, Japan and Taiwan, it was promptly ignored by all countries and when the US stealth bombers were flying China was silent . An actual combat that results in Chinese loss would be detrimental to the continuity of Xi's party and…

>> A military conflict that would be launched by China so far away from it's coastline makes no sense where US has dozens of nearby bases

How does a military conflict between China and US even look like, I always thought it immediately escalates to nuclear war.

Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#119

Post by cbr »

rcavezza wrote: post #45
jacquesm wrote: post #4

What a pity they destroyed those reefs. Besides that, artificial land is nothing new, a good chunk of NL was made by manipulating the sea. Even so this is clearly a 'landgrab', but not much different other than the time in which it happens (the present, rather than a few hundred years ago). NL did it with the colonies and plenty of other countries did it too. A lot of that has reverted over the last 3 decades but the…

>>Besides that, artificial land is nothing new Also - hitting closer to home for me is that a good chunk of Boston is on top of man made land. The entire "Back Bay" area (which is what most people consider downtown Boston) was originally underwater.

Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zgom088YjvKs.kz8zRB...

Re: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

#120

Post by dm2 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #109
dm2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China does have 2.3 million active troops and 700 million humans who would be able to serve if needed. They are considered the 3rd most powerful military. What is the risk?

Unless they're going to swim or row, those 700 million humans who could fight if needed don't do much in a naval war. The risk is, if the Chinese pick a naval fight and their navy gets pummeled, it's a PR disaster. That's a risk for the leadership, not so much for the country.

That's 700 million potential factory workers, military support staff, and soldiers, and the factories are already built, US companies paid for many of them.
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