The islands currently don’t belong to any country. China might be able to argue it has a reasonable claim to the Paracel Islands. But the Spratly Islands are closer to Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. It’s hard to think of any objective reason why China has a better claim than those countries do.
I don’t see how the United States can claim it “rules” the South China Sea. Our closest major bases are in Guam and Okinawa, which are both over a thousand miles away. Right now most of the countries in the region are trying to encourage the United States to send more forces to the area.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
I don’t see how the United States can claim it “rules” the South China Sea. Our closest major bases are in Guam and Okinawa, which are both over a thousand miles away. Right now most of the countries in the region are trying to encourage the United States to send more forces to the area.
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We don’t, except in even sven’s mind. It was just a point brought up to slam the US. Our (very minor) position on all of this is that the waters are international, with free passage to all, and we want to keep it that way. We make zero claim on any of the disputed territory, and are merely trying to arbitrate things so that no one gets fucked over and everyone gets free passage through what are clearly international waters.
They don’t…in fact, as noted, they have the weakest claim since it’s not even close to Chinese territorial waters. What they have is a lot of money and resources and a fairly powerful military, so they are attempting to do this by fiat. I guess it’s cool since it’s not the US doing it, but I have to say that some of the answers in this thread have been surprising.
[QUOTE=even sven]
China would like to have hegemony over the seas in their part of the world.
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So, because they would like that it’s cool for them to grab it? What if the US would like ‘hegemony’ over, oh say the waters around Cuba? Would it be cool if we grabbed that? Because those waters are actually closer to the US than these are to China…and we’d have less countries to bully to get them. So, that’s cool by you, right? I mean, we just want ‘hegemony’ and all, so why shouldn’t we just take it?
Really? Can you show me some evidence that the US claims all of the waters of the world for us to ‘rule’ over? I don’t recall that. So, the US then dictates law on all the waters of the world and exacts some sort of tax or something for it? How does this work exactly? And what the hell are we letting other folks drill for oil and other resources in OUR waters?? I mean, what’s up with that?
Seems like handwaving to me on your part, to be honest.
You seem to be under the misapprehension that this is between the US and China. The US is a fairly minor player in all of this. The only thing WE want is for the free passage of trade and ships through the region with no country able to exert control (and use resources and exact taxes, etc) and for there not to be a multi-sided shooting war in a region where 30% of the worlds trade transits. Seems reasonable to me.
I really don’t get why folks here are so willing to just cave into China because they want this, or how the US has to be the one to give in and just let China ‘win’ (or why folks think that if the US will just do this it will make all the issues go away).
This isn’t a slam on the U.S. It’s reality. The US controls the world’s oceans. We have a mind-boggling navy with a global reach. Nobody even comes close to challenging us.it. Our domination of the seas is just how things are. We don’t claim the territory, of course. That’s not the point. We set the agenda.
China would like to set the agenda in the seas in their part of the world. I don’t think it’s really worth thinking about it in terms of right or wrong. It’s just what superpowers do. And they are going to win this one because they are the local superpower.
No, it makes a lot of sense. The United States routinely conducts threatening naval exercises very close to China (and recently a Chinese submarine surprised everybody by popping up in the middle of it!), of the sort that would raise all sorts of ire if the situation was reversed. For quite a few years now, the US has been building a ring of bases and proxy military relationships which the Chinese see quite clearly as threatening them. That’s what the current dispute over so-called missile defence/defense in South Korea is about.
Yes, this dispute over the islands has serious potential consequences. That’s a great reason not to make it worse by introducing the US military. Even if intervention was going to make things better, which it won’t, there still needs to be a moral hazard here.
If military expansion is the issue, then China is the problem not the United States. America has been reducing its military presence overseas. China’s the country that’s been opening new overseas military bases.
I won’t be surprised if a war breaks out between China and the United States. But the South China Sea would be the wrong place for the United States to draw a line. If we wanted to make a stand there we should have started ten years ago.
My prediction is we’ll fight a war with China within the next twenty to thirty years. Probably over resources in Africa. And that’s why I think we should be working with India and building that country up as a counterweight to China.
Why would we fight a war with China over resources in Africa? Anything they are doing there is stuff we decided was too low-margin to bother with. “China is doing…well…something or another in Africa!” sounds scary, but the Chinese are mostly interested in doing business there.
Fine. Ask the Chinese government if it’s willing to share the South China Sea islands with the other countries in the region.
The article seems to ignore China’s overseas bases. China has bases in Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, the Maldives, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. They’re also negotiating for bases in Angola, Djibouti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Tanzania, and Yemen. China also has border disputes with Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brunei, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Russia, Tajikistan, and Vietnam. And that’s not counting Taiwan and Tibet.
But no doubt, none of this is China’s fault. They’re just an innocent victim in all this.
Do you have a cite for the US conducting ‘threatening naval exercises very close to China’? Because as far as I know, we haven’t operated anything of the sort in ACTUAL Chinese territorial waters. What ‘ring of bases and proxy military relationships’ has the US been building or pursuing in the region in, oh, say the last decade? Again, do you have a cite for such?
Are you talking about this? Can you explain how this is a threat to China in reference to the subject of this thread (or really what you are talking about)?
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.
And Asia is somehow isolated from the US’s interests because…reasons? China? Bad US? Certainty the dispute is regional, and I don’t think we should get involved in sorting out who gets what (that’s what the UN IS SUPPOSED TO BE FOR). But free passage of trade and commerce in international water ways IS our business, especially since a rather large percentage of our trade goes through that region (not to mention many other countries…again, something like 30% of the worlds trade goes through there). That MAKES it an issue were we have a stake. In the world today, nothing is ever just a regional issue when it impacts a world that is connected by trade routes that span the globe, as well as access to goods, services and resources across that globe. And China is the one who is pushing to destabilize a situation that has gone on perfectly fine for decades. In fact, nearly all of the clashes that have resulted in the loss of life in the disputed area have had China involved at a fundamental level. None of the other powers who made claims were doing a lot to bolster THEIR freaking claims by fiat…certainly not to tune the Chinese have, especially recently.
This blather makes no sense whatsoever. “Threatening”? The US is so bent on scaring the PRC and the PRC is so afraid that the US invited PLAN participation in a naval exercise and the PLAN accepted. That’s some really scary stuff, huh?
What proxy relationships? Are you going to go on about how Japan and South Korea are “controlled by the US” or are “puppet regimes”? That’s the usual malarkey I hear from people who simply do not know what they are talking about when it comes to an issue such as this.
Sure, but don’t be so presumptuous as to tell a sovereign nation what to do in a case like this.
The Chinese are involved in all sorts of projects like building ports, but none of that really compares to the empire of US bases around the world. Besides, if they were foolish enough to follow that path, they are welcome to it. Expansion like that makes a country weaker, not stronger. China’s border disputes are with countries on its borders. The United States has no borders with China. If the US acts like a republic, not an empire, then (all things being equal) the US will continue to have no such border disputes with the Chinese.
That’s a straw man.
I didn’t say they were happening in Chinese territorial waters, but they are close enough to be clearly directed at the Chinese. As for encircling China, there’s the massive US military presence in Japan and South Korea, and the recent deployment to Australia amongst all the “pivot to Asia” talk. All of these are wealthy countries that can protect themselves. There’s also the matter of all the US forces in Afghanistan, whatever else is happening in Central Asia, Diego Garcia (stolen from its indigenous people by the US and UK), and so on.
I’m talking about this. I interned under John Feffer, and he explains it pretty well here.
It’s all better than potentially setting off a war between two nuclear-armed powers. Besides, Chinese expansion will not make them stronger.
The world is currently observing the centenary of the First World War, and ought to be learning from it. The US is in North America, not Asia, and even if this part of Asian waters has important economic consequences, the consequences of a war are immeasurably worse, and not just in the short term.
See my cites above, and besides, military and political operators from different countries often are in cordial contact up until the outbreak of hostilities.
I wouldn’t quite use that language, but notice all the pushback from the US satraps in Japan regarding the efforts to close the bases on Okinawa.
All the little countries down there like Vietnam and the Phillipines need to come together and form an organized response to this because separately, they have no chance. Only then should they ask a major power to get involved.
There are two problems with that. The first is that these countries don’t have a lot of common interests. They’re rivals of each other as much as they’re rivals of China.
The second problem is that even if they banded together, they would still be collectively weaker than China. So most of these countries would correctly see an alliance as just something that would potentially drag them into a military defeat they might otherwise have avoided.
The only way these countries are likely to form an alliance is if it’s based around American participation.
I say let the Chinese have their fun. As soon as a typhoon washes away their artificial islands, they will learn that maybe, this is not such a good idea. As far as the USA getting into a war with China, this is just about crazy-with the mutual relationship we have, it would be a disaster. So if the Chinese want to spend billions to occupy these worthless sandspits, let them.
