U.S. Politics

[sne]

9 minutes ago, Awol said:

Sure they have bases in allied countries, which invariably the host countries want in their territory. To protect them from China. 

The point about annex or reclaim is that by definition a country can’t own international waters, ‘cos they are free for all to use. That’s international  law and the fact China wants to change it by creating facts on the ground (or rather create new ground to establish new facts) is the reason for the persistent physical rejection of its claims through freedom of navigation operations. 

Its not western imperialism, it’s chinese imperialism in violation of the established (via the UN) international legal order.

The US seem to have a more laxed stance on this when it comes to Israel

[Awol]

1 minute ago, sne said:

The US seem to have a more laxed stance on this when it comes to Israel

Israel has annexed land which belonged to people the US doesn’t care about. The Chinese are trying to annex some of the busiest international waters on the planet that belong to everyone. 

Not consistent, but not an argument to let China just crack on regardless because Israel. 

[maqroll]

4 hours ago, villakram said:

The US has done many bad things to China

Could you give some examples, I'm genuinely unaware of them.

[El Zen]

2 minutes ago, maqroll said:

Could you give some examples, I'm genuinely unaware of them.

I’m not sure, but I believe your president has frequently called them a ‘gina’. Seems rude, imo. 

[OutByEaster?]

46 minutes ago, Awol said:

The Chinese are trying to annex some of the busiest international waters on the planet that belong to everyone. 

I'm not aware that China are looking to prevent others using these waters, they've a territorial claim, but that's different to stopping people travelling through them.

 

[villakram]

50 minutes ago, maqroll said:

Could you give some examples, I'm genuinely unaware of them.

Treaty ports and concessions.

To be fair the US was late to the party, but only because it was a lesser power at the time. Trade at the barrel of a gun.

[villakram]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

Israel has annexed land which belonged to people the US doesn’t care about. The Chinese are trying to annex some of the busiest international waters on the planet that belong to everyone. 

Not consistent, but not an argument to let China just crack on regardless because Israel. 

Belong to everyone... 

Those waterways are important to us as our corporations abuse the environment and people of those countries to generate profit for themselves. They are important to China because they are strategic choke points.

See Gibraltar, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Diego Garcia, Falklands etc.

[Awol]

Last go. No country can claim to own international waters beyond the national 200 mile exclusive economic zone contiguous to their coastlines. They are the global commons, that’s the law. Trying to ‘claim’ them by constructing artificial features and sticking flags in them isn’t legal. 

Look up the 9-dash line, what they are ‘claiming’ would make Cecil Rhodes blush. It’s a nonsense and would ultimately cause a regional war with their neighbours if it goes unchallenged. 

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Awol
Map added

[blandy]

45 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'm not aware that China are looking to prevent others using these waters, they've a territorial claim, but that's different to stopping people travelling through them.

It’s late, so no time to look up references, but they absolutely are using might and so on to “win” territory. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have time.

[mjmooney]

South-East Asia Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere, anyone? 

[LondonLax]

You can disagree with (or even hate) the USA / ‘the west’ and still call out China when it is being dodgy. 

 

[OutByEaster?]

7 hours ago, blandy said:

It’s late, so no time to look up references, but they absolutely are using might and so on to “win” territory. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have time.

Territory that's off their coast and was won and is being secured by might from a nation 4,000 miles away. I'm just mindful that we report on the South China sea in a peculiar way. I remember the report from not too long ago that described a Chinese fighter jet having flown close to a US aircraft carrier as an unjustifiable provocation - that's a US aircraft carrier that's sailing 10 miles off the coast of China. That's a China that's currently got the biggest gathering of military power since world war two gathered off its south coast, Obama's "pivot to Asia". China is ringed with bases, ships and missiles and is hastily building defences - that's not a good thing, but it's not entirely surprising either. I'm not claiming that the Chinese are 'good', that they're a victim or a nation of innocents, they're patently not, but whether they're the aggressors in the South China sea is very much open to question.

 

 

 

[blandy]

51 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

whether they're the aggressors in the South China sea is very much open to question.

It really isn’t. I don’t mean individual aircraft or ships, I mean building a huge military base in the middle of the oggin, in a place that has 3 seperate nations claiming is their territorial waters.

[HanoiVillan]

I'm with @Awol on this one. China is being aggressively expansionist, and some of these territorial claims are ridiculous. There's no justification for them 'owning' sea up to the coast of Malaysia more than a thousand miles from Hainan. However, they've certainly played a blinder by dividing the governments opposed by providing cheap government financing. 

[LondonLax]

Yes they bought off Duterte fairly cheaply. When you look at the waters the Philippines have lost you realise their people will be ruing it for generations. 

[blandy]

 

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

whether they're the aggressors in the South China sea is very much open to question.

here's some background

Quote

Located at a maritime crossroads between Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and China, the Spratly Islands are sliced through by a confusion of different claims to sovereign territory. Areas of open sea in the archipelago have been aggressively dredged by the Chinese Government, however, and in barely two years more than 2,000 acres of new land has been created. The activity has proved highly controversial because China is accused of creating new land to extend its sea borders. As if to sure up its claims, the Communist state has piled military bases, docks and even a runway on the new islands. The US has said it does not have a position on the land reclamation projects that have incited such anger from China’s neighbours. But the US Defence Secretary, Ash Carter, implied that the mission to sail the USS Lassen missile destroyer within 12 nautical miles of the Subi Reef was an expression of the right to freedom of navigation.

 

Quote

The Chinese government has nearly completed a 3km-long airstrip on a man-made island built to project military power into the South China Sea. New photos taken by US aircraft show dozens of Chinese dredging vessels at work near the island in the Spratly archipelago. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington says that two helipads, ten satellite dishes, a Chinese Naval vessel and a radar tower are visible in the photo. China claims most of the South China Sea as its own territory, though this is disputed by neighbouring nations including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. 

“The way forward is for China, and all claimants, to freeze their reclamation activities and resolve their difference in accordance the rule of law,” Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

“In both eastern Ukraine and the South China Sea, we’re witnessing efforts to unilaterally and coercively change the status quo — transgressions that the United States and our allies stand united against,” Mr Blinken was speaking at a speech at the Center for a New American Security think tank.

China intensified efforts to construct the island last year. The country’s government says the outposts have military, disaster relief, navigation, and search and rescue purposes.

and this type of thing

Quote

War with the US under Donald Trump is “not just a slogan” and becoming a “practical reality”, a senior Chinese military official has said. The remarks were published on the People’s Liberation Army website, apparently in response to the aggressive rhetoric towards China from America's new administration. They communicated a view from inside the Central Military Commission which has overall authority of China’s armed forces..... Quoted in the South China Morning Post, the official from the Commission’s Defence Mobilisation Department wrote: “A war ‘within the president’s term’ or ‘war breaking out tonight’ are not just slogans, they are becoming a practical reality.”

The official also called for military deployments in the tense South and East China Seas and for a missile defence system to guard the Korean peninsula, another regional hotspot, the Post reported. The US should also reconsider its strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, the official wrote.

There's loads elsewhere on the net, but China building a massive base in the middle of disputed waters is quite agressive to its neighbours, with whom it is in dispute, I'd suggest. 

Quote

China has installed rocket launchers on a disputed reef in the South China Sea as it continues its ongoing military build-up. Beijing, which insists military construction on the islands will be limited to necessary defensive requirements, installed the launchers to ward off Vietnamese combat divers. It said it can do what it likes on its own territory, despite the islands being hotly disputed.

The report did not say when the defence system was installed, but said it was part of a response that began in May 2014, when Vietnamese divers installed large numbers of fishing nets in the Paracel Islands. The United States has criticised what it has called China's militarisation of its maritime outposts and stressed the need for freedom of navigation by conducting periodic air and naval patrols near them that have angered Beijing.

link

[AJ]

Any chance Tony can buy one of the islands and small heath, and relocate St. Andrews there?

[villakram]

8 hours ago, blandy said:

It really isn’t. I don’t mean individual aircraft or ships, I mean building a huge military base in the middle of the oggin, in a place that has 3 seperate nations claiming is their territorial waters.

Are you applying for an open sub position at the Daily Hail, hyperbole like that makes us strong!

[blandy]

21 minutes ago, villakram said:

Are you applying for an open sub position at the Daily Hail, hyperbole like that makes us strong!

I'd class a small base as something like not much more than a jetty to land a boat, maybe a helipad and a couple of buildings. Medium to be maybe a rough runway, or a number of buildings and fortifications. Once you get onto full length runways, missile deployments etc etc. you can argue what you want to call it in terms of size, but whatever size you want to call it, it is intimidating to locals and bordering nations etc.

[limpid]

7 hours ago, AJ said:

Any chance Tony can buy one of the islands and small heath, and relocate St. Andrews there?

Brexit is already complicated enough.