# China's south china sea adventure **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 22, 2015, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594 "2015-05-22T15:19:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/121 "2015-05-29T03:14:41Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] China also has a legal advantage in that there’s a treaty going back to when France still ruled Indochina in which France and China negotiated a naval boundary and France ceded Indochina’s claim to the islands to China. Vietnam can say that it’s not bound by this colonial treaty but China can say that it means that when Vietnam was founded as a country, the South China Sea islands were not part of Vietnam. [/QUOTE] Yeah, Vietnam is definitely a tangled mess, but I’d have to say there that China has the advantage. It was the SOUTH Vietnamese government that claimed the area, while the North supported (at the time) China’s claims (big surprise I’m sure), and even made several statements during the Vietnam war to the effect that they supported China’s claims. They have reversed that in the last decade or so, and the major clashes that have lead to a loss of life have been between China and Vietnam, with China encroaching even on the 200 NM Exclusive Economic Zone of Vietnam (and claiming the Vietnamese coast line as part of their territory). > [@](#): > > China has a few objective facts on their side. They were the first country to claim the islands in modern times - their official claim goes back at least to the forties. But nobody really cared enough to make an issue out of it until the seventies when it was discovered there was probably underseas oil fields in the region. That’s when other countries began making claims and everyone started trying to turn their claims from a theoretical matter into something real. But China was able to legitimately say they had called “dibs” before anyone else did. Only if you draw an arbitrary timeline of ‘modern times’…several of the countries have historical claims that can be validated in the 19th century, and China has gone back and forth on this issue in the last 50 years. Also, as you note, both Chinese governments (if we can call Taiwan a legitimate government in the eyes of the law) claim the area using the same evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/122 "2015-05-29T05:01:56Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Only if you draw an arbitrary timeline of ‘modern times’…several of the countries have historical claims that can be validated in the 19th century, and China has gone back and forth on this issue in the last 50 years. Also, as you note, both Chinese governments (if we can call Taiwan a legitimate government in the eyes of the law) claim the area using the same evidence. As far as modern times, I’m going with the “then to now” principle. China can show that its current claim has been in existence longer than any other country’s current claim. Which granted was largely a matter of circumstance - other countries weren’t able to make sovereignty claims because they were themselves the colonies of foreign powers. As for “historical” claims, that’s probably the most ambiguous issue in a pretty ambiguous situation. Several countries in the region, including China, have produced social or archaeological evidence or antique documents that they claim shows that these islands have been considered “theirs” for thousand of years. These claims are, in my opinion, silly. The reality is that these islands were uninhabited up until very recent times. Only the weakest of arguments can be based on who might have been fishing in those islands sixteen hundred years ago. As for the two China debate, I’ll note the irony that the People’s Republic of China is basing its legal claim on treaties and proclamations that predate the communist revolution and were therefore made by and with the Nationalist government. The PRC’s claim, of course, is that sole “legitimate” government of China it inherited all the legal claims that the Republic of China had. Which is weakened by the reality that the Republic of China is still a going concern. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/123 "2015-05-29T06:22:45Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Vietnamese who remember China’s 1979 invasion, and that the PRC still has a bit of Vietnamese territory then taken, might disagree. (For me, not being Vietnamese, it is so easy to call it “a bit.”) Cite for that? IIRC at the time, China pulled back to existing borders. Wiki (not the authoritative word of course) doesn’t mention a permanent land grab. ---
**Author:** ![Gorilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Gorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorilla)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/124 "2015-05-29T15:55:50Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > > > What is really at stake is U.S. hegemony over “international” waters. I’m ok with that. The U.S. will have to slowly withdraw from world dominance as it is eclipsed economically by China. There is an alternate future where the U.S. embraces free market capitalism and is not eclipsed by a command economy in China, but this alternate future will also involve withdrawing from world dominance and pursuing an ethical foreign policy. > > What? There’s a certain renowned scholar and political activist who might be able to elaborate on it. [Interview](http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20140222.htm): > [@](#): > > Q: China is now embroiled in territorial conflicts with Japan and the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea as well as the air defense identification zone on its contested borders. In all of these cases, the U.S. is directly or indirectly involved. Should these be understood as cases of Chinese expansionism? > > A: China is seeking to expand its regional influence, which conflicts with the traditional U.S. demand to be recognized as the global hegemon, and conflicts as well with local interests of regional powers. The phrase “Chinese expansionism” is accurate, but rather misleading, in the light of overwhelming U.S. global dominance. > > It is useful to think back to the early post-World War II period. U.S. global planning took for granted that Asia would be under U.S. control. China’s independence was a serious blow to these intentions. In U.S. discourse, it is called “the loss of China,” and the issue of who was responsible for “the loss of China” became a major domestic issue, including the rise of McCarthyism. The terminology itself is revealing. I can lose my wallet, but I cannot lose yours. The tacit assumption of U.S. discourse is that China was ours by right. One should be cautious about using the phrase “expansionism” without due attention to this hegemonic conception and its ugly history. [Also here](http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175503/): > [@](#): > > Among major topics not addressed is the shift of U.S. military policy towards the Asia-Pacific region, with new additions to the huge military base system underway right now, in Jeju Island off South Korea and Northwest Australia, all elements of the policy of “containment of China.” Closely related is the issue of U.S. bases in Okinawa, bitterly opposed by the population for many years, and a continual crisis in U.S.-Tokyo-Okinawa relations. > > Revealing how little fundamental assumptions have changed, U.S. strategic analysts describe the result of China’s military programs as a “classic ‘security dilemma,’ whereby military programs and national strategies deemed defensive by their planners are viewed as threatening by the other side,” writes Paul Godwin of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The security dilemma arises over control of the seas off China’s coasts. The U.S. regards its policies of controlling these waters as “defensive,” while China regards them as threatening; correspondingly, China regards its actions in nearby areas as “defensive” while the U.S. regards them as threatening. No such debate is even imaginable concerning U.S. coastal waters. This “classic security dilemma” makes sense, again, on the assumption that the U.S. has a right to control most of the world, and that U.S. security requires something approaching absolute global control. > > While the principles of imperial domination have undergone little change, the capacity to implement them has markedly declined as power has become more broadly distributed in a diversifying world. Consequences are many. It is, however, very important to bear in mind that – unfortunately – none lifts the two dark clouds that hover over all consideration of global order: nuclear war and environmental catastrophe, both literally threatening the decent survival of the species. [US concerns about China](http://jnslp.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/07_Pedrozo-Master.pdf) threatening its current dominance of the Pacific: > [@](#): > > In short, the Soviet Navy **was** a true global blue water navy. Its ships operated around the world with impunity and erased the image that the USSR was solely a continental power. **The PLA Navy has not achieved a similar global status**. In this regard, INCSEA also gave the Soviet Navy something the Red Army didn’t have – a bilateral relationship with its U.S. counterpart. Since the Soviet Union had traditionally been considered a land power, INCSEA elevated the prestige of the Soviet Navy at home and abroad.30 An INCSEA agreement with the PRC would significantly enhance the stature of the PLA Navy **by suggesting it was a naval power on par with U.S**. and former Soviet Navies. It would also force the U.S. Navy to treat the PLA Navy as an equal, **something which it clearly is not**. (My emphasis) > [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > I interned under John Feffer, and he explains it pretty well here. > > > [@](#): > > > > So, your suggestion is to basically let the other powers in the region fight it out in a free for all in the disputed area? Or, conversely, that we let China bully the other nations in the region into giving up their claims and allowing China to expand and assert sovereignty in the region (as well as **set a precedence for doing this sort of thing in the future** )? Can you explain why you think this is a good idea from the US’s, as well as the other regional powers who aren’t China? Because I’m really not seeing it. (Referring to bolded) Could he possibly have been serious when he made that statement? Was he not aware that his own government had **already** set (or at least followed) a precedent for that sort of thing a long time ago??? How does he think the US got Guantanamo Bay in the first place? And what does he think his own government has been doing in Latin America and the Pacific for the past century? It’s interesting to hear people saying “this is just about maintaining the welfare and integrity of trade routes; that’s all it is; we’re only concerned about the trade.” As if the vast majority of that trade doesn’t actually involve China itself. Why would China want to jeopardize its own economic growth by harming the trade between itself and the rest of the world? And what indication is there that they would be crazy enough to try to interrupt the comparatively minor trade between the smaller countries next to them and the rest of the world, as if there wouldn’t be any repercussions for doing that? But it’s probably the best (most face-saving) way to frame US angst over China’s current actions, given the US’s own expansionist history (which makes China look like a recluse in comparison). The best thing for US officials to say to China (and the entire world) might be “Look, we know we ourselves have been naughty in the past. But let’s all agree that two million wrongs do not make a right.” ---
**Author:** ![iLemming](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90db22/32.png) [@iLemming](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iLemming)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/125 "2015-05-29T16:19:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But if we don’t stop China’s settlement program, I feel it’s going to render any future plans moot. If five years from now, the situation is there are a few thousand people living on the islands and ninety percent of them are Chinese, then China will simply step back and propose a “fair” solution to the dispute: let the “local population” choose what country the region belongs to. As, some may argue, they’re doing with their agricultural land buy-ups (no.1 in AU now, taking the mantle from the U.S.), influx of tainted goods under “free trade” banners (recent Chinese-made refrigerant gas recall in the same region due to high moisture content), key infrastructure tenders (_e.g._, Huawei) _et al._. A Chinese analyst said not so long ago, spurred by these very island disputes: “_The Chinese are like a forest: They take a while to get there; but once they’re in, you’ll never get them out._” Baleful. > [@Gorilla](#): > > The best thing for US officials to say to China (and the entire world) might be “Look, we know we ourselves have been naughty in the past. But let’s all agree that two million wrongs do not make a right.” But 1.4 billion _Wongs_ might just…! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/126 "2015-05-29T16:19:21Z")
> [@](#): > > China’s independence was a serious blow to these intentions. In U.S. discourse, it is called “the loss of China,” and the issue of who was responsible for “the loss of China” became a major domestic issue, including the rise of McCarthyism. The terminology itself is revealing. I’d say the terminology reveals Chomsky is an idiot but most people already knew that. “The loss of China” had nothing to do with China becoming independent. China had already been independent. The “loss of China” was when the Chinese communists defeated the Chinese nationalists. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/127 "2015-05-29T16:25:00Z")
> [@iLemming](#): > > As, some may argue, they’re doing with their agricultural land buy-ups (no.1 in AU now, taking the mantle from the U.S.) I think that the land buy-ups are just an indication that China is more advanced on this issue than other countries are. Western countries have always treated farmland as if it was a virtually infinite resource. China knows better. So they see the value of buying up farmland now while it’s still available for relatively cheap prices. It’s the equivalent of somebody buying up oil rights back in the twenties. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/128 "2015-05-29T22:05:02Z")
[QUOTE=Gorilla] (Referring to bolded) Could he possibly have been serious when he made that statement? Was he not aware that his own government had already set (or at least followed) a precedent for that sort of thing a long time ago??? How does he think the US got Guantanamo Bay in the first place? And what does he think his own government has been doing in Latin America and the Pacific for the past century? [/QUOTE] Yeah…‘he’ is serious. And, no ‘he’ is not aware that this precedence has already been set for a long time. Feel free to provide a link for ‘him’ if you think it has been. Oh, and ‘he’ can clear see you try and muddy the waters, shift the goal posts and wave your hands in the air like you don’t care wrt how the US got Guantanamo Bay, and ‘he’ is curious how you pulled this out of your ass as a good analogy. ‘He’ also would love to see how you connect the dots between what the US has done in Latin American and the Pacific in the last century and what China is attempting to do…again, feel free to go into some detail on this. As, feel free to actually use my name and when quoting me attribute it to me, so everyone knows in the future who ‘he’ is. 😛 > [@](#): > > It’s interesting to hear people saying “this is just about maintaining the welfare and integrity of trade routes; that’s all it is; we’re only concerned about the trade.” As if the vast majority of that trade doesn’t actually involve China itself. Why would China want to jeopardize its own economic growth by harming the trade between itself and the rest of the world? And what indication is there that they would be crazy enough to try to interrupt the comparatively minor trade between the smaller countries next to them and the rest of the world, as if there wouldn’t be any repercussions for doing that? But it’s probably the best (most face-saving) way to frame US angst over China’s current actions, given the US’s own expansionist history (which makes China look like a recluse in comparison). Just a bunch of uninformed blather that boils down to ‘don’t really know anything about any of this and just wanted to blather’. Appreciate it though. > [@](#): > > The best thing for US officials to say to China (and the entire world) might be “Look, we know we ourselves have been naughty in the past. But let’s all agree that two million wrongs do not make a right.” So, to summarize…US bad, so ok for China to be bad too? That sum it up? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/129 "2015-05-29T23:10:03Z")
> [@XT](#): > > So, to summarize…US bad, so ok for China to be bad too? That sum it up? It seems to. But it’s a confusing argument to follow. If China is just doing the same thing that America has done and America was wrong when it did it, doesn’t that mean China is also wrong? And if China is doing something wrong then isn’t trying to stop them from doing it right? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/130 "2015-05-30T00:52:50Z")
> [@XT](#): > > No, they don’t all have military installations…and none of them have anything (yet) on par with what China is currently doing. [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_South_China_Sea) is a breakdown from Wiki if you are interested. China isn’t just ‘doing a better job of it’…they are completely destabilizing the situation. How do you “completely destabilize” a situation where six countries have competing, poorly founded claims and almost all of them (I’ll give you Brunei) are running military operations and engaging in cocassional clashes? The options here, in descending order of probability, is: 1. Somebody eventually wins 2. Everyone just fights this forever Those are the only ways this can play out. I don’t think it’s my job to pick the winner. If Asia wants to figure out a way to pick a winner, let them do that. If they can’t muster it, then whoever is strongest is going to win. That’s just reality. Thankfully, these are uninhabited islands and there probably isn’t actually much oil there, so I’m not losing sleep over it. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/131 "2015-05-30T01:27:58Z")
[QUOTE=even sven] How do you “completely destabilize” a situation where six countries have competing, poorly founded claims and almost all of them (I’ll give you Brunei) are running military operations and engaging in cocassional clashes? [/QUOTE] Because the situation has been pretty stagnant for quite a long while, and clashes have been few, so the situations status quo was the same…until China decided to ramp things up in the last few years. I’d say that this qualifies as ‘completely destabilize’ of the status quo, since it has rather obviously escalated the said situation. > [@](#): > > The options here, in descending order of probability, is: > > 1. Somebody eventually wins > 2. Everyone just fights this forever Or, 2…a settlement is reached and they all get some of what they want but not all, including the US who basically just wants the open and free passage of commerce, trade and our military units in international waters and airways. > [@](#): > > Those are the only ways this can play out. They certainly seem to be the excluded middle play out that most in this thread seem to think are all that’s possible. I guess we’ll see, since it seems unlikely that the US is going to cave on this, and unlikely that the other non-Chinese nations are going to just give up their own claims as long as the US doesn’t cave, and China is unlikely to cave either. So, I guess it will either be China wins (which seems to be what most folks in this thread want or at least feel is the only way it’s going to be) or we have all out war. > [@](#): > > I don’t think it’s my job to pick the winner. If Asia wants to figure out a way to pick a winner, let them do that. If they can’t muster it, then whoever is strongest is going to win. That’s just reality. Thankfully, these are uninhabited islands and there probably isn’t actually much oil there, so I’m not losing sleep over it. Well, glad we’ve settled the might verse right debate at least. So, you freely admit that he who has the biggest gun will and should win. 😛 Of course, the US isn’t trying to pick a winner in this…we merely want to ensure that international water and airways stay international. Seems reasonable to me. And, of course, handwaving away the importance of this by simply calling them ‘uninhabited islands’, while true, is at this point a bit disingenuous since we’ve been over this. I’m glad you aren’t losing sleep over it though. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/132 "2015-05-30T01:38:12Z")
I’m definitely not rooting for China to “win”, nor am I judging anything right and wrong. I just see a lot of space between “this isn’t a great way to go about things” and “we should definitely to to war over this right now.” ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/133 "2015-05-30T02:16:53Z")
The notion that China either desists from their island project or else international trade will be held hostage also excludes a rather yawning middle. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/134 "2015-05-30T02:45:21Z")
> [@Donald\_Rump](#): > > The notion that China either desists from their island project or else international trade will be held hostage also excludes a rather yawning middle. Except that I’ve not (nor do I think anyone else has) couched this in either or terms. Rather, it’s the uncertainty that is the key. Also, it’s not exactly a stretch that China could decide to play favorites, so to speak. I mean, it will be their waters, after all. Subject to their laws, regulations and enforcement. So, they could stop ships for inspection of cargoes or fire on ‘pirates’ as they have done against Vietnam…all on the up and up of course, no favorites being played at all. Whether they will or not will be entirely up to them. And, as is obvious, they will impose definite exclusions for foreign (US, but also other nations in the region, nations that are actually much closer to the disputed area) military planes and ships. That will certainly happen, and the US would not be able to use it’s current stance that it’s international air and water ways, since it won’t be at that point. [QUOTE=even sven] I’m definitely not rooting for China to “win”, nor am I judging anything right and wrong. [/QUOTE] No, I don’t think you are and I’m not meaning to imply that you are either. I guess I’m a bit surprised by the attitude that we should all just give in because China wants this, as if that makes it a done deal…though, I come here to see a debate and to see different view points, and this one has certainly given me a lot to think about. It’s not the slam dunk I originally thought when I first saw this again (I had read about this years ago when the dust up with Vietnam happened, but hasn’t really kept up in the decade or so after to see where it was all going). > [@](#): > > I just see a lot of space between “this isn’t a great way to go about things” and “we should definitely to to war over this right now.” There is a lot of middle ground here, and as I said I think Obama et al are taking a good course for the US at this time. I think we are doing the right thing, even if it’s pissing off the Chinese (or, IMHO, they are SAYING it’s pissing them off, though my WAG is they really aren’t surprised by our reaction). ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/135 "2015-05-30T07:50:04Z")
Legitimate question. How is China’s claim to these islands any different or weaker than the US claim of Wake Island or the UK’s claim to Diego Garcia? Wake Island was claimed by the US in 1899, it’s nowhere near the US and the Marshall Islands dispute the US claim. When the UK aquired Diego Garcia the “native”\* population was forcibly resettled and their descendants are still fighting to try and get the rights to live their again. In the case of the Paracel Islands according to wiki there is evidence of temporary inhabitation by Chinese fisherman going back to 1200 AD and they were undoubtably a part of the Yuan empire in 1368. I am not a fan of a lot of things that China does, but in this case their claims are not completely unfounded and it’s no different from what the US, UK and France has done: claiming islands huge distances from their home territory against the protests of nearer claimants. - OK Diego Garcia was “purchased” from Mauritius in 1965 but there is a very strong case that Mauritius had no right to sell it with no consultation with the population that had at the time been living there for almost 300 years. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/136 "2015-05-30T08:38:18Z")
Every Chinese government in the last 200 years has vocally claimed sovereignty over the Spratleys and Paraceles. The Qing did, so did its successor state the Republic of China and so did its successor states the PRC and ROC/Taiwan. China has fought multiple no-shit shooting wars with both the US backed South Vietnamese and the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam over the islands, involving substantial casualties and the sinking of warships. Chinese sovereignty over the islands has been consistently and vigorously asserted for the last 100 years, and has mostly not been challenged in the last 50 years. If you only read the narrative being put forward by **XT** , you would be under the impression that the current Chinese government just woke up last month and decided to seize a bunch of islands out of the blue, and that without an immediate US military response (to the Chinese constructing infrastructure on what they have long considered to be Chinese territory), Chinese tanks will be rolling through the streets of Manilla and Hanoi. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/137 "2015-05-30T10:18:49Z")
^ Agree. If the US main concern is ‘freedom of the seas’ then the best way to approach this situation would be an offer by the US to recognise some of the claims in return for China guaranteeing free and unhindered passage to all commercial vessels through the waters regardless of country of origin. China would probably be willing to concede some of their claims on the ones currently occupied and under the control of Vietnam, the Philippines Taiwan etc in return for recognising their claims to the ones they currently hold. ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/138 "2015-05-30T10:28:14Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Except that I’ve not (nor do I think anyone else has) couched this in either or terms. Rather, it’s the uncertainty that is the key. Ok. But the non-interventionist position that’s been advanced by some on this thread including me is that a confrontational US stance, one that sends our planes into the air above these islands and dares China to shoot, carries a risk of getting out of control and potentially leading to war. There, too, it’s the uncertainty that is the key. The real question is whether the potential bad consequences of China’s actions outweigh the potential bad consequences of the US response. ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/139 "2015-05-30T10:31:27Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > If the US main concern is ‘freedom of the seas’ then the best way to approach this situation would be an offer by the US to recognise some of the claims in return for China guaranteeing free and unhindered passage to all commercial vessels through the waters regardless of country of origin. China would probably be willing to concede some of their claims on the ones currently occupied and under the control of Vietnam, the Philippines Taiwan etc in return for recognising their claims to the ones they currently hold. That makes a great deal of sense to me. Insisting on an outcome where the US gets everything it wants and China gets none of what it wants is bound to cost the US more than it’s worth to us. What **coremelt** describes reflects a more realistic equilibrium outcome, and one that doesn’t carry a risk of armed confrontation. ---
**Author:** ![Gorilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Gorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorilla)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594/140 "2015-05-30T13:41:14Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Yeah…‘he’ is serious. And, no ‘he’ is not aware > > … > > So, to summarize…US bad, so ok for China to be bad too? That sum it up? I found your response extremely amusing. So amusing, in fact, that I’ve decided to play along. Enjoy. 🙂 > [@](#): > > Yeah…‘he’ is serious. And, no ‘he’ is not aware that this precedence has already been set for a long time. Feel free to provide a link for ‘him’ if you think it has been. Since you evidently have personal access to this man, feel free to invite him to this thread and I shall gladly oblige. As for you, I’m quite confident that you’ll be able to use those active fingers of yours to do a quick googoo search for the relevant information. If googoo proves to be too hard, try bebo instead. > [@](#): > > Oh, and ‘he’ can clear see you try and muddy the waters, shift the goal posts and wave your hands in the air like you don’t care wrt how the US got Guantanamo Bay, and ‘he’ is curious how you pulled this out of your ass as a good analogy. ‘He’ also would love to see how you connect the dots between what the US has done in Latin American and the Pacific in the last century and what China is attempting to do…again, feel free to go into some detail on this. As, feel free to actually use my name and when quoting me attribute it to me, so everyone knows in the future who ‘he’ is. 😛 Lol! I’m so embarrassed! Now I see where the mistake occurred. Please forgive me, I must have skipped over the part of the thread where you made that comment and I later misread\*\* Lemmytheseal2\*\*’s post. I thought **Lemmytheseal2** was posting a quote from foreign policy expert **John Feffer**. (Though, the error should have been obvious to you from the way it was quoted.) But **now** it makes sense. I was scratching my head thinking that there there was absolutely **no way** he could have made such a profoundly dumb and ignorant statement. I apologize sincerely for the error. Now that I know that it was you that made that statement, I can sleep better now. There’s still hope for the world. Whew!!! By the way, those examples were not meant as “analogies”. That term wouldn’t do justice to the situation at all. What the US government did in acquiring Guantanamo Bay, and many of its activities in Latin America and the Pacific for the past century, were hundreds of orders of magnitude worse than anything China has recently done that you’ve spent this whole thread babbling about. If you can’t “connect the dots” as to how those examples are relevant to your China tantrums, I can’t be bothered to explain it to you. And no, ‘he’ _obviously_ can’t see _anythin_g clearly other than the bug in front of ‘his’ nose. (Also, you need to be careful about using phrases like “pull it out of your ass” when you’re going around acting like you have a huge Chinese bug up yours. :p) > [@](#): > > Just a bunch of uninformed blather that boils down to ‘don’t really know anything about any of this and just wanted to blather’. Appreciate it though. Just a bunch of uninformed blather that boils down to “haven’t the faintest clue how to respond to this (because there _is_ no good response), so I’ll just stick my fingers in my ears and shout “aaaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh :eek:" You’re welcome. Since I anticipated your rather knee-jerk reaction to my post (though, the entertainment value has been a pleasant surprise), I actually went to the trouble of finding a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXov7MkgPB4) for you online which may help you understand exactly why the US should be concerned about China’s activities but which have absolutely **nothing** to do with everything you’ve been babbling about. This is a video of foreign policy expert John Mearsheimer giving a speech (or “uninformed blather”, as you might call it) about China and foreign policy. I could easily have just said “go and read some of this man’s books” but I’m aware that for many people it’s much easier to just watch a video. No thanks needed. 🆒 > [@](#): > > So, to summarize…US bad, so ok for China to be bad too? That sum it up? No…no…no. That is _not_ the moral of the story. I shall be willing to go into a full elaboration as to what it is only after you’ve shown that you’re worth the time by completing the following tasks: 1. To prove that you can actually do online research (which is harder than just playing foreign policy hawk on the internet), go and find the exact year and location in which the US sat down with all the concerned countries in the East Asia region and they all agreed to certain set boundaries in terms of the “scale, scope and speed” at which the Spratly islands are to be occupied. 2. Finally (see how quick it is to count from one to two?), go and find out what the word “hyperpower” (_not_ “superpower”) actually means and whether such a thing really exists in contemporary times outside of the imaginations of armchair internet warriors. When you’ve done that (to my satisfaction) I will then explain the right conclusion that should be drawn (and the best way forward) as a way to “sum it up”. Make haste! I hope you enjoyed that. It was the least I could do in return for your intriguingly amusing post. Again, you’re welcome. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinas-south-china-sea-adventure/720594.md?page=8)