in charge of our Carrier Task Force in this area. She's an English major and commanded some relief operations during Katrina.
Posted on 10/02/2010 5:08:42 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
China's rising economic power has been accompanied by an expansion of Beijing's aggressive tactics to protect its maritime activities--and an increase in its neighbors' inability to do anything to confront the giant.
Japan appeared to have been caught off-guard by China's strong reaction to the detainment of the skipper of a Chinese fishing boat that collided with two Japan Coast Guard vessels near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
But such aggressive Chinese behavior has already become routine in the South China Sea. And while Southeast Asian countries hope to get Washington involved in countering China, even the United States has found itself on the receiving end of Beijing's bold actions.
The South China Sea holds the Spratly and Paracel islands that a number of nations, including China, claim sovereignty over. Tensions involving China occur on an almost daily basis in those waters.
In mid-June, Vietnamese fishing boats were working in the waters off the Gulf of Tonkin as they have done for many years. But Chinese authorities started to seize the boats, and by the end of June, 31 vessels were in Chinese custody.
Toward the end of April, Beijing unilaterally declared that between May 16 and Aug. 1, fishing would be banned in the waters north of the 12 degrees north latitude line.
The boats seized had crossed that line.
However, no reports appeared in Vietnam about China's new measure.
The seizures came to light only after a group of Vietnamese expats, upset by Beijing's actions, released the information over the Internet. But people in Vietnam were unable to access that website or the blogs that touched upon the seizures.
In late June, the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry issued a statement that said, "The Spratly and Paracel islands are Vietnamese territory." Although China was not mentioned in the statement, it was clearly in response to the seizures.
The seizures are not the only steps in China's strategy to spread its control over surrounding waters.
It has expanded its presence in the South China Sea by skillfully accumulating established facts with an eye toward gaining control over underwater resources needed to support China's economic growth.
Beijing is also strengthening its naval power, including the construction of aircraft carriers.
Since the 1990s, China has built various facilities on the small islands and reef of the Spratlys ostensibly to provide an evacuation site for fishermen and for maritime surveying. But some of those facilities can be converted to military purposes.
In 2001, China suddenly banned fishing in the South China Sea between June and August and took measures to exclude fishing boats of other nations.
Another step used by Beijing is to send large fleets of fishing boats accompanied by fisheries patrol ships to provide protection. In the waters off the Spratlys, it is not unusual to find up to 1,000 Chinese fishing boats on an especially busy day. This Chinese presence has caused friction with Malaysia.
A large fisheries patrol ship has been on constant watch over the Chinese fishing vessels since April. On Sept. 29, the latest large patrol ship with a displacement of about 2,500 tons was launched from Zhanjiang in Guangdong province. The ship is large enough to carry a helicopter.
Southeast Asian nations are obviously not pleased about what is happening around them, but they have yet to retaliate against China through equally strong measures or even strong protests.
Nazery Khalid, a senior research fellow at the Maritime Institute of Malaysia, said the deepening economic interdependence with China makes it extremely important to avoid any incident that could threaten peace and stability in the region.
A key reason China is expanding its maritime interests is to secure the energy resources needed to support its economic growth, which has been averaging about 10 percent annually.
Rich petroleum and other resources lie beneath the South China and East China seas. The South China Sea is also an important shipping lane that connects to the Strait of Malacca.
With its rapid increase in energy demand, China became a net importer of petroleum in 1996. About 80 percent of its imported petroleum passes through the Strait of Malacca.
China is currently building a naval base in Sanya, on the southern tip of Hainan Island, that serves as a gateway to the South China Sea. The base, which will be one of the country's largest, will have a port for a nuclear-powered submarine as well as an aircraft carrier now being constructed. Once the base is completed, China will have overwhelming influence over the South China Sea.
Although the United States has traditionally not gotten involved in maritime disputes in Asia, Washington has found it increasingly difficult to ignore the forceful way in which China is expanding its maritime interests.
In 2001, when military planes of the United States and China collided in midair near Hainan Island, Washington was forced to offer an apology to gain the release of the plane and its crew members.
In March 2009, five Chinese government ships interfered with the activities of a U.S. Navy surveying ship in the South China Sea.
In addition to the threat to free passage through important shipping lanes, a U.S. Defense Department report said Washington is concerned that China's military buildup could destroy the fragile conditions now found in the South China Sea.
The nations along the South China Sea do not want to take on China one-on-one. Instead, they want to engage China within a multilateral framework, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, that would also include the United States.
Washington is seeking to contain China by responding to requests from those Southeast Asian nations.
Regarding the U.S. position on China in the South China Sea, a high-ranking U.S. government official said Washington was taking steps that were plainly visible.
In addition to actively taking up the issue at ASEAN-related meetings, the United States dispatched the aircraft carrier USS George Washington to a military exchange event with Vietnam in the South China Sea in August. Such moves always make Beijing nervous.
But concerns among ASEAN members about directly confronting their close neighbor China have watered down U.S. efforts.
On Sept. 24, U.S. President Barack Obama held a 90-minute meeting with the 10 leaders of the ASEAN nations in New York, mainly to discuss the situation in the South China Sea.
However, in the joint statement released after that meeting, the term "South China Sea" that the United States had included in the draft had been deleted.
Three days earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu issued a veiled threat: "We will express our gravest concerns about any statement regarding the South China Sea."
At a speech Sept. 23 at the United Nations General Assembly, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China would "never bend or compromise" on issues related to state sovereignty and territorial integrity.
With the dispute over the arrest of the Chinese trawler captain intensifying, the Japanese government took Wen's comment as a message on the Senkaku Islands. But ASEAN nations considered it a message directed at them.
"It would not have been fair to include the issue in a statement from a meeting in which China was not present," a high-ranking government official of an ASEAN member nation said. "We also did not want to give the impression that we were willing to do whatever the United States said. By deleting 'South China Sea,' we saved the face of both China and the United States."
Southeast Asia nations paid great attention to the situation between Japan and China following the collision near the Senkaku Islands. However, government officials of the Southeast Asian nations remained rather mum on the incident.
According to Chinese government sources, Beijing began dispatching fisheries patrol ships to the East China Sea in 2006, when Chinese fishing boats began operating near the Senkaku Islands because of the reduced catch in waters near China.
The fisheries patrol ships initially instructed the fishing boats not to enter the "delicate waters" near the Senkaku Islands. However, the situation has changed dramatically since the arrest of the Chinese trawler captain.
"The unspoken rule that had been followed for many years (of only chasing away fishing boats that entered territorial waters) was broken, and Japan began loudly proclaiming that the incident occurred in its territorial waters," a Chinese government source said. "In the future, the fisheries patrol ships will have to be more aggressive."
But a high-ranking Japan Coast Guard official pointed to the changing nature of the fishing boat involved.
"There had never been a case of a Chinese fishing boat ramming one of ours," the official said.
China's long-term strategy for the East China Sea is to establish a so-called first island chain that connects Okinawa, Taiwan and the Philippines as a maritime line of defense. The waters within that chain, including those around undersea gas fields, would be turned into an "inland sea" of sorts for China.
China would then seek to create a deep-water navy that could deploy throughout the western Pacific within a second island chain extending from the Japanese archipelago through Saipan and Guam and reaching Indonesia.
For those reasons, the tensions that occur in the South China Sea on an almost daily basis have begun to appear in the East China Sea as well.
Imperialism is human not western.
“We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves”?
We’re just building up for another round of the ‘Great Game’. Get your flag ready.
Disgusting.
Not one SE Asian nation has groveled before China on this issue nor will they and if China knows what is best then they will keep their nose out of SE Asia.
Read the article and you may change your mind. What's disgusting is that China has taken over the entire South China Sea and is fishing in ASEAN waters without ASEAN lifting a finger. Here's the relevant passage:
But concerns among ASEAN members about directly confronting their close neighbor China have watered down U.S. efforts.The question then arises - if these people won't even issue a statement criticizing China, what are we doing potentially putting our boys in harm's way? We're making a bigger stink about this than they are, and it's not our territory that's at stake.On Sept. 24, U.S. President Barack Obama held a 90-minute meeting with the 10 leaders of the ASEAN nations in New York, mainly to discuss the situation in the South China Sea.
However, in the joint statement released after that meeting, the term "South China Sea" that the United States had included in the draft had been deleted.
Three days earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu issued a veiled threat: "We will express our gravest concerns about any statement regarding the South China Sea."
It's looking more and more like a walkover for the Chinese every day. The Chinese never did this kind of stuff when we had Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines. Looks like when the Filipinos kicked Uncle Sam out back in the early 90's, they screwed not only themselves, but the rest of Southeast Asia as well.
China can do whatever it wants:
1) 1.3 billion people (and growing)
2) The 2nd largest (and growing) economy in the world
3) Dictators with a history of and willingness to ethnically cleanse any land they occupy in the name of national xenophobia
4) Growing wealth, strength and influence everywhere
5) An opponent willing only to talk and unwilling to compete in anything meaningfully.
The major beginning will be the taking of Taiwan before Obama leaves office. What will zero do? Nothing.
The United States once had a vision of Manifest Destiny.
So do today’s Chinese.
I have a suggestion for Japan and our other friends in East and Southeast Asia — particularly Taiwan and South Korea. You might think about secret collaborations NOW to put together tactical nuclear weapons deterrent capabilities.
The United States will not be a reliable ally in a very short time, either because we have undependable leadership (as is currently the case), because we have been run into the ground economically and politically by self destructive leadership (which seems to be the way we are going unless that changes quickly) OR we are trying to rebuild capabilities but are over-committed at home or in other theaters. In any case, reliance on the US is not a safe bet anymore for your survival, much less your prosperity. And China wants to swallow you like a tiger wants a little baby rabbit...
in charge of our Carrier Task Force in this area. She's an English major and commanded some relief operations during Katrina.
I see a Bad Moon arising.
I can't believe that with the other recently appointed flag officers, she is the one put in charge of something important. Not that she isn't competent at what she does or isn't tough (I'll bet she is) but I think that most if not all of the other guys would be better to lead the task force if the situation got hot.
She sure does look like one of the guys. With that silly boy haircut she looks better with her cap on in my opinion.
Why lesbians have to have a man's haircut instead of a short and sassy feminine cut that would enhance their appearance, I'll never know...
http://nafhq.org/articles/Bullhorns/Bullhorn71 050410.htm
Rear Admiral Nora W. Tyson
If the Chicoms want trouble with the Vietnamese, I don't doubt that the Vietnamese will have any problem with fighting. Claiming rights that cover about two thirds of their coastline, 12 degrees north latitude, is not friendly. The Paracel Islands appear closer to Vietnam than the island of Hainan. It's about 1000 miles across the South China Sea to the Philippines from Vietnam, IIRC.
A little issue called "freedom of the seas", which is still the lifeblood of international trade.
Own the right to preclude or exclude foreign bottoms from all or part of the world's oceans, and that is the equivalent of a choke-hold on all trade.
Asahi has of course their own POV on this, and I thought I heard the grumble of an axe being ground in the background somewhere, but they are explicit in saying that the Chinese would definitely like to take over the Philippines and Okinawa and the Ryukyu/Senkaku chains.
As in, boots on the ground and Mandarin in the schools.
So does Ozero.
This rapidly looming global war, brought to you by Wal*mart and “free trade”.
Oh My God! I totally missed that!
Thanks for pointing that out.
I guess it could be just for show (the ring or the man she is married to) but will be fair and give her the benefit of the doubt that she is a married heterosexual woman who just looks masculine and prefers a short boyish hairstyle.
And to top it off... I consider myself something of an expert with gender presentation / gender nonconformity issues (Please don't ask)...
And then something like this happens and I make a comment on her appearance (gender presentation) and then wind up looking totally stupid because I apparently am just as gender biased as everyone else...
Well, just goes to show that you can't assume just because a woman is not beautiful and has a short haircut they are a lesbian...
Thanks neverdem. China will get too deep into imperial expansion, and be bled to death in those adventures as well as by its own restive Muzzie population, and we need to be ready to help (and I don’t mean help China).
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