South China Sea Forum

[Dungeness]

Please forward all Intel to JSDF, please and thank you.

Are you working in official capacity on PDF? You sounded like a member of JSDF in active duty. Just curious.

 

[Genesis]

Only 2 questions? Does China not claim territorial waters off these islands? IF not, then what exactly have you achieved by pouring all that sand and yen into them?
If the USN can show that they are nothing more than permanent structures to be avoided during navigating the SCS (which they already were being reefs and all), rather than Chinese sovereign territory accompanied by all the rights granted to it by international laws, especially the 200 mile EEZ - what has China accomplished by making these islands anyway?

First current international law states, any nation can go within 12 miles IF they are just passing through. China has made a challenge to this, but then we sailed within 12 miles of Alaska, so I guess that's no longer in stone.

The US didn't do anything to offend the CURRENT law, which means, even though this is suppose to be a challenge, but it in fact recognizes the islands, because they didn't do, say launch a missiles or something.

The fact the US feels the need to sail within these 12 miles really says it all. Without these islands, the US wouldn't even need to make this challenge.


Read something other than propaganda, the current Chinese AIDZ in the east sea, is essentially established, it's not 100%, but we are getting the desired results by having more fighter sorties and more resources in general than Japan.

Also consider this, in 1989 we were sanctioned, in 1996, two carrier groups were deployed, in 2015, a ship sails into the 12 mile zone, which ironically recognizes our claim.

I say that's pretty good progress.

If U.S. Ship = poor Vietnamese fishermen ship, the Chinese will sink it. That is Chinese, yeh that is right.

If Chinese plane = Iranian air line, US will also destroy it. What's your point.

Anyways, China and Vietnam had "2000"" of these incidents according to Vietnam, and no sinking yet.

decline of American empire? America is having a good time right now , growing faster compared to the whole last decade+.

If US hasn't "collapsed" a decade ago , what makes you think it will now

First day on he internet I see. Americans says we collapse, for about 20 years now, even though today we grow another China every year relative to early 2000s.

We say the US collapses, even though it's doing fine, it just doesn't have the same advantage it once had.

Don't worry, you'll feel better on your second day.

 

[Economic superpower]

LOL another clown emerges

the whole point of these islands is to expand territorial waters of China , if US ignores them then what has been done is an utter waste. as to militarizing islands , think with your tiny a little bit and try to figure out how easy of a target a militarized island will be for ships operating far away.

decline of American empire? America is having a good time right now , growing faster compared to the whole last decade+.

If US hasn't "collapsed" a decade ago , what makes you think it will now

Ukraine was never in NATO , so US was never obliged to protect Crimea , only delusional morons bring that up to point towards "American Decline"

Syria , what has US lost in Syria exactly? they still conduct their operations in Syria and Iraq , additional 12 A-10s were sent to Turkey for missions in Iraq and Syria.

all this is while US has a pacifist president in power.

LOL

The US has been in decline for 15 years as its economy has been dead with 0% interest rates and bubbles in housing and bond market propping up its Ponzi scheme QE economy. It's labour force participation is at record lows which shows its middle class is shrinking and the people working are in part time jobs. Median income shrinking. Its debt continues to grow while its corporations are no longer the only ones in their respective sectors and companies from other countries are ending its monopolies.

It used to be number 1 in many areas (trade, manufacturing, market in different segments, etc) even 5 years ago which they are no longer.

America is just becoming a normal country as others are challenging its monopoly power. No one challenged American power 5 years ago and now everyone is challenging it. Things like BRICS bank, AIIB, ADIZ, SCS, Crimea, Syria, Renminbi, CIPS, cyber, brands, supercomputers, weapons sales, financing poor countries, infrastructure construction, consumer market, investing, technology monopoly etc etc etc the list is endless.

It had no challengers in many areas a few years ago but now it faces challenges from many areas and it has to manage its relative decline and absolute decline.

American power is based on holding a monopoly in all areas. As other countries end that monopoly, America's ability to dominate affairs diminishes over time.

Only a delusional noob like you thinks the US isn't in decline. It's a combination of others catching up and American decline.

You can pretend the US isn't in decline all you want, won't change reality buddy.

 

[TaiShang]

We understand that the US now recognizes the islands as they keep getting bigger and more peace and security structures are built upon them.

We acknowledge that the US has an issue with the 12 NM rule for vessels passing by. As @Genesis mentions, that's a two-way street. Now that China already returned the favor and will do more frequently so; I guess all is fine.

It is China playing the catch-up game. The US only is acting to keep its great power home turf. Due to the nature of things in historical/contextual sense, we got to accept them as they are.

We are Marxists; we pay as much attention, if not more, to contexts as facts.

The US seems to come to understand and acknowledge that the island genesis and build-up efforts will continue with or without US ships passing by.

Consider this a capability build-up for immediate and future purposes.

12NM is another animal. After all, China's immediate concern is the sovereignty over and build-up on the islands. Now that this is now an established and undisputed fact, that's a strategic gain.

China never claimed the SCS in its entirety. What we really care about the islands, that are, not by chance, the biggest in the SCS.

 

[EAsian]

Let's see what will happen,pretty interesting.

 

[Sanchez]

I am afraid of coming escalation of the event. China's sea police or PLANY has to respond...
China claims the islands/reefs and the EEZ within the 9 dotted lines.

Send some larger ships to cruise around the rocks...

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

This is more of a polite ,yet firm, way of reminding China that according to International law, artificial structures does not have a maritime territorial claim. To have territorial waters, an Island should be habitable, and should not submerge completely during high tide in its natural state,which Chinese artificial Islands do no, hence no territorial sea for them.

So when Chinese ships sailed within 12 nautical miles of Alaska, what does that mean?

 

[F-22Raptor]

A U.S. Navy ship passed within 12 nautical miles of disputed islands in the South China Sea late Monday in an apparent challenge to China's territorial claims in the region.

A defense official told the Associated Press that the USS Lassen, a guided missile destroyer, moved inside what China claims as a 12-mile territorial limit around Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands archipelago, a disputed group of hundreds of reefs, islets, atolls and islands in the South China. The official said the patrol took place without incident.

"We are conducting routine operations in the South China Sea in accordance with international law," a senior defense official told Fox News. "We will fly, sail, and operate anywhere in the world that international law allows."

The Navy's plan to send a destroyer near the Spratly Islands was first reported by Reuters.

Asked for comment about the U.S. move, a spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Washington, Zhu Haiquan, told the Associated Press China respects freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

"Freedom of navigation and overflight should not be used as excuse to flex muscle and undermine other countries' sovereignty and security," he said. "We urge the United States to refrain from saying or doing anything provocative and act responsibly in maintaining regional peace and stability."

China's assertive behavior in the South China Sea has become an increasingly sore point in relations with the United States, even as President Barack Obama and China's President Xi Jinping have sought to deepen cooperation in other areas, such as climate change.

China claims virtually all of the South China Sea. The Philippines and other countries that have territorial disputes with China in the busy sea have been particularly concerned by China's recent land reclamation projects that have turned a number of previously submerged reefs in the Spratly archipelago into artificial islands with runways and wharves.

"We have been clear that we take no position on competing territorial sovereignty claims to land features in the South China Sea," the senior defense official told Fox News late Monday. "U.S. Freedom of Navigation operations are global in scope and executed against a wide range of excessive maritime claims, irrespective of the coastal state advancing the excessive claim. The longstanding FON program is not directed at any specific country."

Adm. Harry Harris Jr., commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, has previously said the South China Sea is no more China's than the Gulf of Mexico is Mexico's.

US Navy ship passes disputed islands claimed by China | Fox News

China backs down, as expected...

 

[Roybot]

Whatever happened to the Americans being scared of the mighty Chinese and only sending a puny LCS?

Kowtowing to Beijing, USA officially declines to deploy fleet to South China Sea

 

[Nilgiri]

How hard would it be for the US destroyer to scoop some soil from the sea bed while they are there and indulge in some "resource extraction" just to see the Chinese whine about it?

Or just give some fishing tackle to the sailors to catch what they can. Take pictures and post them hehe.

USN should schedule a live stream on youtube from the destroyer. That would be killer.

 

[DaiViet]

ok so china does not do anything? wow that is unlike han warriors here big talk anything. let me guess chinese will try to spin this to China win and u.s lose again.

 

[Cossack25A1]

The thing is, what the US is doing is to ensure Freedom of Navigation, yet the Mainland Chinese think it is a provocation and a sign of declaration of war.

I wonder what will happen to non-Chinese merchant fleets if the islands will have military installations? Will they be forced to hail the PLA in the area just to have a safe passage? This reminds me of the concept of medieval castles called "Pfalzgrafenstein Castle" and "Gutenfels Castle" in Germany.

 

[Rechoice]

There is big mastake made by China, PLAN. China can't challange USA navy in SCS

 

[TaiShang]

China Straining U.S.-U.K. Relations; South China Sea At Center?
OCT 21, 2015 , Forbes

In the art of statecraft, as in much else, Britain has never ceased being the master, and America the more often than not easily distracted, generally poor student.

Disparate policy stances and strategies toward China are now providing vivid and highly edifying example of this.

“US takes stern line on UK’s shirt to China,” declares a headline in the October 20 Financial Times.

Notes the FT, while Chinese president Xi Jinping received the expected honors in Washington during his state visit last month, and will enjoy the comparable treatment in London, “China experts in Washington say…the two Atlantic allies have diverged in the way they treat the rising Pacific power.”

Let me state my position clearly: In my view, the British approach to China is the correct one.

The Duchess of Cambridge and Chinese President Xi Jinping listen as Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II speaks at a state banquet in the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace, London, on the first day of the state visit to the Britain, Tuesday Oct. 20, 2015. (Dominic Lipinski/Pool Photo via AP)

Prime Minister David Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne have concluded that Britain’s national interests are served by “positively engaging” (my term) China. This means actively promoting activities, most obviously and materially commerce, that are “win-win.”

It also means–and here we can appreciate the depth of British diplomatic sophistication–not picking fights and pushing agendas that have little or no relevance to national interests, which are essentially cultural and historical in origin.

The Brits–based on several centuries of experience–appreciate that, as Kipling wrote: “East is East and West is West.” That China’s 5000 year old political culture contains attitudes and mores that offend some Western sensibilities–particularly in more “progressive” countries like the United States–is accepted in Britain as a given, a fact of life, rather than as a challenge.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, left, shakes hands with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang before their meeting at the Zhongnanhai Leadership Compound Monday, Sept. 21, 2015 in Beijing, China. (Lintao Zhang/Pool Photo via AP)

From their own history and experience, the Brits would see little or no positive purpose or outcome in lecturing others–least of all China–on the proper conduct of its internal politics and law. True to their traditions, what the Brits want from China is “trade”–a term that nowadays includes reciprocal investment, project development, technology transfer, and like.

It was such clear-headed thinking by which Cameron’s government decided in March to break ranks with a would-be U.S. boycott and to join the China-promoted Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a founding member.

Such sobriety seems to elicit mainly incomprehension and derision from Washington, where bureaucratic self-interest seems to have placed every matter involving China in a “zero-sum” paradigm.

The FT article quotes Evan Medeiros, now at Eurasia Group after having been head of the China desk of the National Security Council: “If there is one truism in relations with a rising China, it is that if you give in to Chinese pressure, it will inevitably lead to more Chinese pressure. London is playing a dangerous game of tactical accommodation in the hopes of economic benefits, which could lead to more problems down the line.”

A clearer expression of the gap between U.S. and U.K. mindsets would be hard to find.

Australia’s Treasurer Joe Hockey (C) holds up his pen as he becomes the first to sign an articles of association to help set up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) during a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 29, 2015. The 57 founding member countries of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) began signing articles of association setting up the new institution on June 29. The AIIB, which will have billions of dollars to lend, is expected to go into operation later this year. AFP PHOTO / WANG ZHAO (Photo credit should read WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images)

Except that the Brits have calculated that “problems down the line”–if any–will be manageable, and are no reason a priori to insert essentially gratuitous conflict into the relationship.

The American national security establishment is incapable of this kind of calculus. And the self-serving obsession with chimerical “problems down the road” is roiling relations with China now, particularly in the South China Sea (SCS).

An authoritative commentator on SCS issues is Dr. Sam Bateman who retired from the Royal Australian Navy as a Commodore and is now a professional research fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS). Bateman was awarded his PhD from the University of New South Wales in 2001 for a dissertation on “The Strategic and Political Aspects of the Law of the Sea in East Asian Seas.”

Writing in The Strategist blog of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in May Bateman asks: “Does the US know what it’s doing in the South China Seas?”

He continues: “The idea that the US may send military aircraft and ships to assert freedom of navigation around Chinese claimed islands in the South China Sea is seriously bad. It’s bad because it would involve an unreasonably assertive interpretation of the international law of the sea, and because it shows such little regard for the impact of such action on regional stability.”

My guess is that the Brits–who know something about naval affairs–would agree.

Particularly, as Bateman writes: “The second issue [the first was debatable validity of claims] is the oft-stated line from Washington that China threatens the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. But what freedoms are being threatened?

“China has always said that with freedoms of navigation and overflight, it only disputes the right of the US to conduct military activities, particularly certain types of intelligence collection and military data gathering (so-called ‘military surveys’) in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

“The last law of the sea issue arises from reports that the options being considered in Washington include sending aircraft and ships within 12 nautical miles of the reefs and islands occupied by China….

China’s Defense Minister Chang Wanquan addresses the Xiangshan Forum, a gathering of the region’s security officials in Beijing, China, Friday, Nov. 21, 2014. Chang said Friday he wants to enhance dialogue to manage disputes with his country’s neighbors, sounding a conciliatory note after years of sharpened confrontations over territorial claims on land and sea.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

“Even though the features may not be full ‘islands’ under UNCLOS, they have a territorial sea. Sending ships and aircraft into such waters specifically for demonstrating a right wouldn’t be a legitimate exercise of innocent passage. UNCLOS makes clear that innocent passage should be ‘continuous and expeditious,’ and shouldn’t involve ‘any threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of the coastal State.”

Concludes Bateman: “For all these reasons, the action contemplated by the US looks like a dangerously unilateral assertion of rights by Washington…Provoking China in such an aggressive and unnecessary many can only make the current situation worse. One wonders whether the US know what it’s doing in the South China Sea…”

And finally: “What does all this mean for Australia? Basically, it means we should keep well clear of what the US is contemplating, including joining Washington in these protests against China.”

Could David Cameron and George Osborne be heeding Bateman’s advice? My guess is yes, and for very good reasons. Britain is showing that it will break ranks when American “leadership” is heading in the wrong direction.

That relations with China have become possibly the most serious conflict in U.S.-U.K. relations is of historic importance.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

There is big mastake made by China, PLAN. China can't challange USA navy in SCS

sure we can. We aren't Vietnam.

The thing is, what the US is doing is to ensure Freedom of Navigation, yet the Mainland Chinese think it is a provocation and a sign of declaration of war.

I wonder what will happen to non-Chinese merchant fleets if the islands will have military installations? Will they be forced to hail the PLA in the area just to have a safe passage? This reminds me of the concept of medieval castles called "Pfalzgrafenstein Castle" and "Gutenfels Castle" in Germany.

just as PLAN sailing through Alaskan waters is demonstrating freedom of navigation and Taiwanese ships sailing into Philippine waters is also demonstrating right of innocent passage, yet Filipino regime kills unarmed Taiwanese sailors. Zero Filipino sailors have been killed by the Chinese navy. And then you wonder, why are the islands being militarized? What did we do wrong? LMAO GTFO.