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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

#51

Post by knodi123 »

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

It is if you ignore artificial land construction which had no effect on territorial boundaries. Which, after all, is irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

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

#52

Post by honest_joe »

oblio wrote: post #37
wil421 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is an American conspiracy of some kind. These issue need to be addressed before a smaller country and China start to take shots at each other (I mean this literally and figuratively). Similar issues are happening in Ukraine with Russia annexing Crimeria. What if China wants a piece of the Philippines or Vietnam? It needs to be addressed on an international stage before the civilians on both sides begin…

China did want a piece of Vietnam. It didn't achieve much when it tried to get it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War Of course, at the time China's economy and military where much smaller. But so was Vietnam's. Out of China's neighbors that should be worried Vietnam is probably the least likely target since it's basically an armadillo. The rest, however, have plenty to fear.

And it is not only Vietnam that China should be worried about. They have heavily armed koreans and crazy japanese at their doorsteps. God knows what could really happen.

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

#53

Post by smcl »

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…

My word the southern reaches of the Chinese claim are extremely grabby! Is this just similar to haggling in a bazaar for an item listed at $30, which you personally value at $20 so you open with a lowballed offer of $10?

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

#55

Post by jcranmer »

logfromblammo wrote: post #17

It all comes down to the international laws of the sea. Planting your flag on a 1m wide rock above the high tide line enables an exclusive zone with radius 12 NM for excluding all foreign vessels, a radius of 24 NM for enforcement of your laws, and one with radius 200 NM for exclusive economic activities, like oil drilling, undersea mining, and fishing. It's a resource grab. China wants the fish and the seafloor. Wha…

Artificially-constructed islands don't count for expanding EEZ per UNCLOS. What China appears to be doing is attempting a mixture of trying to dilute the facts so as to increase ambiguity and developing "facts on the ground" (cf. the Israeli settlement patterns in Palestinian territory) so that any grand compromise hews more to their favor.

I think the last thing China wants is a multilateral treaty: the more people that are involved in a treaty, the less powerful China's negotiating time is. China has made repeated angry noises against proposals to treat the issue as a single regional issue rather than a collection of bilateral disputes. The disputes are also a large factor into why all the other south-east Asian countries (including especially Vietnam!) are trying to cozy up to the US and get the protection of the US Navy.

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

#58

Post by forgetsusername »

wil421 wrote: post #23
wahsd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That whole story kind of strikes me as propaganda with deliberately provided intel and probably even satellite images. There is increasing necessity to condition Americans for what is seen as a coming confrontation with China. People need to start being worried and have concerns. I'm not placing any kind of judgement on whether that is good or bad, but it is happening and our government deems it necessary to "educate…

Not everything is an American conspiracy of some kind. These issue need to be addressed before a smaller country and China start to take shots at each other (I mean this literally and figuratively). Similar issues are happening in Ukraine with Russia annexing Crimeria. What if China wants a piece of the Philippines or Vietnam? It needs to be addressed on an international stage before the civilians on both sides begin…

>Not everything is an American conspiracy of some kind.

Sure. Unlike the Russians, or the communists, or the terrorists, this time there's a true global threat.

>What if China wants a piece of the Philippines or Vietnam?

Exactly: what if? Are we going to prepare for every possible scenario? There are a lot of them.

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

#60

Post by mason240 »

wahsd wrote: post #14
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…

That whole story kind of strikes me as propaganda with deliberately provided intel and probably even satellite images. There is increasing necessity to condition Americans for what is seen as a coming confrontation with China. People need to start being worried and have concerns. I'm not placing any kind of judgement on whether that is good or bad, but it is happening and our government deems it necessary to "educate…

Education is tool of the oppressors.
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