I didn’t see any threads on this so wondering what 'dopers thoughts are on the recent developments in the South China Sea. For anyone who doesn’t know what’s been happening, here is a recent CNN report on the subject, including a video where a CNN reporter was allowed on a US surveillance mission over some of the facilities China has been busy building up. From the article:
This has been a bone of contention with the various regional powers for years, sort of on the back burner but still slowly boiling away. However, China seems to have decided to up the stakes recently and has gone on a huge building spree in the area, building ports, air strips and military bases with barracks and advanced radar installations. Not sure why this has suddenly become such a big thing to China, or what their ultimate goal is, but part of it might have to do with the possibility of oil in the region. Another might be to control trade routes…something like 30% of the worlds trade transits the south china sea area.
So, what do you guys think? And where is this headed? What should the nations in the region do about this (if anything)? What should the US and Europe do, since this affects them too (not just from a treaty perspective but also could affect trade)? And, most importantly, where is this all headed? As the CNN guy says in the video, it’s hard to see how China could back down at this point, having committed massive resources to all of this…but I don’t think the US can back down either, nor several of the other nations involved. This whole thing sure brewed up quickly (I realize it’s been going on for a long time, but it’s pretty recent that China started really pouring it on in it’s building program in the region).
China needs raw materials, energy, and fish to feed its population. They see the Spratley Islands as a place that (Potentially ) could provide lots of oil and gas-so, they decided to exert their claims of ownership over them. How does this differ from USA claiming Pago Pago, or Guam?
If China is to clean up its polluting emissions, they will have to switch from coal to clean burning natural gas; so looking for a source for this is OK with me.
As for the Philippines and Vietnam; they need to see if the UN can arbitrate their claims to the islands.
The US didn’t build Guam or Pago Pago out of whole cloth, building them in the middle of a highly disputed area, so I really don’t see any sort of connection there at all. Can you explain how the two things don’t differ in your mind?? They don’t look even close as analogies to me.
As for the rest, you seem to be saying that’s it’s ok for China to just grab the area by military fiat because they need it. :eek:
This is the first I’ve heard of it, but from the looks of it it’s been reported on for at least 6 months. Maybe it’s interesting to foreign policy boffins, but I’m not sure why I should care. The US would rather China not do anything there, but China is going to do it anyway and the world is going to let it happen. Same as with Russia and Crimea. Nobody’s going to go to war over this, so it will be a lot of sternly worded letters and possibly some saber rattling, and then everyone will go about their business. At some point Obama will take a position and conservatives will loudly declare that it’s the wrong position, while contributing no ideas of their own. And so it goes.
I think your analysis of how this will play out is wrong, and thus I think that your lack of caring is based on a faulty analysis. I don’t see Vietnam, the Philippines or Taiwan (let alone the US) just letting this go. Essentially, what this looks like to me is China is attempting to assert sovereignty over an entire international sea and air space through creating islands, building military installations and then claiming it by fiat. Put it another way…pick some other large and vital trade route in the world. Say the ones coming directly out of the Middle East. How would it be if, say, the US decided to build a bunch of islands in the area, militarize them and then claim them as our sovereign territory, asserting our control over them? Think that would be ok, and that the rest of the world would just play along? Oh, and throw in the potential for natural gas and oil, just to make it interesting. Think the rest of the world would just play along?
China has no real claim on that area. Though it’s called the South China Sea, it’s actually not near the Chinese coastline if you look on a map (especially the parts where China is building these artificial islands). Basically, if you are right and China gets away with this it will set a precedent for any nation to be able to simply move into a formerly international area, start dredging up some sand and creating some islands, plopping down some ports and runways for military units, building barracks and then asserting sovereignty over those areas by fiat and the right of the strong. If China can do it, why not everyone else who CAN do it, after all?
The US set a precedent that countries can invade sovereign nations and overthrow their governments. Russia set a precedent that countries can invade sovereign nations and claim massive amounts of their territory as their own. What was done about it?
Would you be willing to die to prevent China from claiming the Spratly Islands? Would you be willing to send other people to die? How many Americans would you be willing to sacrifice in order to stop China? Maybe if we pick a number now it will solidify our resolve.
America doesn’t have the stomach for this sort of thing anymore. If we’re not willing to go to war with China, why would you think small Southeast Asian countries would?
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The US set a precedent that countries can invade sovereign nations and overthrow their governments. Russia set a precedent that countries can invade sovereign nations and claim massive amounts of their territory as their own. What was done about it?
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Who cares wrt THIS discussion? Those things have zero to do with this.
We ARE sending folks there and into harms way, and it’s very possible someone will die, since people fuck up all the time. People HAVE died (though not Americans, so maybe to you that doesn’t count) over this, since China has clashed with Vietnam and several other nations in the region over this.
And yet the fleet is steaming in that area, we have planes overflying it and the tensions are mounting. But, ok, I guess we don’t have the stomach to do anything and China will just be allowed to snatch a vitally important international trade route area along with the resources under it. That should be an interesting precident when the Northwest passage area…perhaps the US should just stifle the disputes and build some new islands and claim it for our own, since this seems to be ok and no one will really do anything about it.
My opinion is that this is more of a political move than a military one. China is the most powerful country involved in the dispute but it currently has the weakest case. So I think China has started a program of developing settlements in the islands. After a few years of this, when they can show that Chinese citizens are living on the islands and they have a strong case, they will ask for some international body like the UN to arbitrate the ownership dispute.
That’s the reality of the situation. China is making a territory grab and they’re not going to stop unless somebody forces them to. The only country that realistically has the power to do that is the United States.
So are we going to threaten war with China over a bunch of islands in the South China Sea? I don’t think so - I don’t see this as a vital American interest worth fighting for.
You guys know that you are excluding a vast middle area between doing nothing and all out war, right? I don’t think anyone (including China or any of the other disputants) are keen for an all out shooting war in one of the major trade routes for the world, let alone that nearly all of the potential combatants are also trade partners at one level or another.
So, leaving aside whether the US should go to war with China over this, do you think that the US should do ANYTHING? Should we do what we are doing, which is basically to overfly the area, let the Chinese know through diplomatic channels that we are very unhappy, etc? Would sanctions or other economic leverage be off the table, or would that be worth our while to look into?
At some point you can use this logic to say that the US should never do anything about anything, because someone will be upset. But if we don’t do anything in this particular situation, you are admitting that it’s cool for China to bully the other nations in the area who you admit have stronger claims (and who are also not doing crazy shit like this to bolster their claim…Vietnam has, for instance, done similar things, but they have developed something like 60 acres…China, in the last 2 years according to that CNN article I linked too, is over 2000 acres and climbing daily)…and also that the other powers will have to find their own solutions (which will probably mean that they will do similar stuff, and some sort of clash is inevitable…like I said, it’s already happened between China and Vietnam, and will probably escalate if we do nothing).
Also, while we aren’t directly involved with the territorial dispute (except to assert to all disputants that this is in fact international territory, free for passage to all and not to be restricted by ANY of them), I’d say that we do have an interest here, since trade is the life blood of our own nation, and OUR trade transits this area as well.
The United States needs to being building a Pacific bloc centred around containing China’s maritime expansion. In this regard, Japan’s military build-up and renunciation of Article 9 is promising although on the other hand, their apologism for war crimes is doing little to endear themselves to our other Asian allies (or potential allies). The Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia all will be important players here but we also need to build up our relations with Vietnam and especially India as a counterweight in the region. In this regard, the TPP may play a significant role in increasing ties and is arguably one of the best reasons in favour of the law.
I agree that other possible responses exist. But my personal opinion is they wouldn’t work. I feel that this is an issue that the Chinese government has committed itself to and it’s not going to back down voluntarily from it. I think they would defy any diplomatic or economic pressure rather than change course.
So my take on our options is this:
We can just ignore the situation and let it happen.
We can resist by non-military means, like diplomatic and economic sanctions. As I noted above, I doubt this would work. China would still end up claiming the territory and we’d have antagonized them to no point.
We can resist by a military proxy. We could offer support to one of the other countries directly involved. But I don’t see this as a workable plan. I doubt Indonesia, the Philippines, or Indonesia are going to be willing to confront China unless we give them a really strong commitment.
We can resist with our military. I think this would work in the sense that I believe the United States could beat China in a war. But the cost would be enormous and I don’t see this as an issue worth fighting a major war over.
We can go along with it. China wants control of these islands. We have interests of our own in other areas. Perhaps we should be exploring some kind of deal. We could support China’s goals in the South China Sea and China would support us in some other goal we want.
I think the key is India. The other nations you mentioned are not in China’s league.
India isn’t as powerful as China but it’s closer than any other power in Asia (not counting Russia). And India is a growing power. Both India and the United States share a common interest in keeping China from becoming too powerful and we should be working together on this.
Look at a map, India is not one of the players in this section of the world.
For those of you late to the party, this has been going on with China since at least the 1970’s. At various times even claim the Nautuna area off of Indonesia, which is a loooooooooong way from mainland China and even from Hainan Island.
Wikipedia has an older Taiwanese map that takes a bigger bite out of Indonesian waters. I haven’t fact checked Wiki, but they seem to have a decent overview.
If you’re talking specifically about the South China Sea, you’re right. India has no claim to the islands. Neither does Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, Russia, or, obviously, the United States. But these countries have other interests which overlap Chinese interests.
China would like to have hegemony over the seas in their part of the world.
Seems kind of imperialist, until you consider that the US is the one who currently rules the seas in the region. We’d clearly like to keep this arrangement, but it’s not like we have any real justification.
China will win this one. The U.S. will complain and many editorials will be run. But in the end the sky won’t fall.
Actually, it’s a vital international shipping lane and it’s very important. That’s to say nothing of the tensions it raises in the region, how it makes the U.S. and its allies look when they’re made to look weak in the face of Chinese expansionism, how letting such actions continue unabated could incentivise heretofore allies to start jumping ship… the C.I.A.'s prognostication that major regional war would break out in Asia by 2025.
It may seem like a world away to U.S. citizens who are busying arguing over their right to carry military arms on the streets and into schools, but Asia is the future – not the West, much less the U.S… For reference:
The “population PIN code” for 2,100:
Americas - 1 billion
Europe - 1 billion
Africas - 4 billion
Asia (inc. Oceania) - 5 billion
These island creations and annexations have actually been going on for years and have only been stymied (to a degree) by handfuls of Filipino marines manning beached, rusted out WWII era U.S. boats located in the disputed region. It’s literally that thin of a red line between China scooping up the entire area, predicated oupon some 400AD parchment they think is proof of holy writ that ‘The Middle Kingdom’ owns all it surveys.
If you truly think this is a storm in a teacup, I suggest you ignore any such news pertaining to this issue and simply act dumbfounded when war breaks out.