Posted on 08/07/2012 7:37:14 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
China recently declared that most of the 3.5 million square kilometers South China Sea had become Sansha, the latest Chinese city. The area China claims is within the city limits comprises over two million square kilometers of largely open ocean and a few hundred tiny islands and reefs, many of which are only above water during low tide. Sansha is administered from one of the Paracel islands (Woody Island). The U.S. government responded by asking that China obey international law. China currently claims South China Sea areas close to neighboring nations, except for areas about 22 kilometers from the coast. International law gives all nations control over fishing and oil drilling 380 kilometers off their coasts. China refuses to obey this rule (which it had once agreed to). In response to the American reminder, the Chinese called the U.S. a trouble maker. China is not backing down.
For over three decades China has been using a gradual strategy that involves first leaving buoys (for navigation purposes, to assist Chinese fishermen), followed by temporary shelters (again, for the Chinese fishermen) on islets or reefs that are above water but otherwise uninhabited. If none of the other claimants to this piece of ocean remove the buoys or shelters, China builds a more permanent structure to aid passing Chinese fishermen. This shelter will be staffed by military personnel who will, of course have radio, radar and a few weapons. If no one attacks this mini-base, China will expand it and warn anyone in the area that the base is Chinese territory and any attempts to remove it will be seen as an act of war. The Vietnamese tried to get physical against these Chinese bases in 1974 and 1988 and were defeated both times.
In 1995 China built one of these mini-bases 114 kilometers from the Filipino island of Palawan on Mischief Reef. Earlier buoys and a temporary structure had been removed by Filipino sailors. But in 1995, while the Philippines had suspended air and naval patrols of the area because of a nearby typhoon (Pacific hurricane), the Chinese rushed in and built a permanent base, on stilts, on the reef. China told the Philippines they would defend this one, and the Philippines found that their American ally was reluctant to go to war over a small structure on stilts on Mischief Reef. Four years later the Chinese expanded the Mischief Reef stilt structure, and now it was obviously a military base. The Philippines protested and China ignored that. Now the Philippines is drilling for oil off Palawan and Chinese is using this "base" as the basis for declaring the drilling operations illegal. China has threatened to use force against oil companies that dare drill in their territorial waters without permission.
This is part of a strategy based on the ancient principle that, when it comes to real estate, "possession is 9/10ths of the law." It's the law of the jungle, because all the claimants are armed and making it clear that, at some point down the road, force will be used to enforce claims. With the establishment of Sansha City, China is saying the next time anyone does anything China does not like within the city limits it could be war, because a government has to defend its sovereign territory.
Currently Woody Island has a permanent population of about a thousand people who have to be supplied (even with water) at great expense from the Chinese mainland. Most are military and police personnel (who serve on the island for two years) and civilian officials (who serve six month tours). There is a small fishing community and facilities for fishing boats to tie up and the crews to come ashore for some rest. There are also some tourist attractions. Woody Island is about 340 kilometers from Chinese territory (Hainan Island) thus within China's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The expense of maintaining Sansha is a minor cost when you consider that this move makes many disputed islands, atolls, and reefs officially part of China.
As a "city" Sansha requires a larger military garrison, which is expected to arrive soon in the form of several thousand troops, armored vehicles, anti-aircraft weapons, warships, and aircraft. The Paracel Islands are also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam. China has been expanding military facilities on these tiny islands for several years. Among the more notable additions were an expanded electronic monitoring facility and a lengthened runway on Woody Island, now long enough to support Su-30 fighters. Several large fuel tanks have also been built, indicating an intention to base warplanes there. Eventually, over 3,000 civilian and military personnel will be stationed in Sansha. This strengthens claims on unoccupied islets and reefs, including many within the Filipino EEZ.
China is also concerned about the nearby Spratlys, a group of some 100 islets, atolls, and reefs that total only about 5 square kilometers of land but sprawl across some 410,000 square kilometers of the South China Sea. Set amid some of the world's most productive fishing grounds, the islands are believed to have enormous oil and gas reserves. Several nations have overlapping claims on the group. About 45 of the islands are currently occupied by small numbers of military personnel. China claims them all but occupies only 8. Vietnam has occupied or marked 25, the Philippines 8, Malaysia 6, and Taiwan one.
Taiwan built a 1,150 meter long and 30 meter wide air strip on Itu Aba, called Taiping Island by the Taiwanese. Ita Aba is one of the largest of Spratly Islands, at about 120 acres (489,600 square meters). It has been in Taiwanese hands since the mid-1950s, and has largely been used as a way station for fishermen. The island is also claimed by the Vietnamese, who call it Thai Binh. Taiwan has long maintained a small military presence on the island and the air strip is meant to cement that control. Protests were made by Vietnam, which controls the largest group of islands, and the Philippines, which also claims Itu Aba island. The Vietnamese earlier refurbished an old South Vietnamese airstrip on Big Spratly Island.
In 1988, China and Vietnam fought a naval battle off the Spratly islands. The Chinese victory, in which a Chinese warship sank a Vietnamese transport carrying troops headed for one of the disputed islands, was followed by Chinese troops establishing garrisons on some of the islands. In 1992, Chinese marines landed on Da Lac reef, in the Spratly Islands. In 1995, Chinese marines occupied Mischief Reef, which was claimed by the Philippines. Now China can claim that many non-Chinese bases on disputed islands are illegal as they fall within the city limits of Sansha. China's neighbors are looking to the United States to deal with the local bully, and so far the Americans have been reluctant to get that involved.
“Stopping Chinese imperialism before they lay claim to Guam, Hawaii, or San Francisco is an American interest”
Give me a call when they are planning to invade ANY US territory. Thats just silly. As for a base here, when you sell and trade with someone, they are here in a port. But that was not a forcible entry. And if you murder someone in the COSCO terminal, you’ll be tried in California or in some cases Federal court.
It is not Chinese national territory.
I hope you have a better argument then that. That we need to go to war in the Spratley islands, to foil China’s plan to invade Hawaii, Guam, and San Francisco. LOL
Actually, they do, and they've started harassing non-Chinese fishermen in the region. They're not going to make it a closed military zone, they'll just insist that only Chinese commercial shipping is allowed through those waters, just as only Chinese shipping is allowed to navigate China's canals and rivers.
As a China-watcher who's read a fair amount of Chinese history, what sticks out is China's grabbiness with respect to territorial issues. The amusing thing is that it was a Chinese grad student who disabused me of the notion that China is a peaceful country. In a moment of candor, he said, quite logically, that big countries like China don't get that way by peaceful means. The National Review's John Derbyshire had this to say about China:
The Chinese people respond eagerly to these ultra-nationalist appeals: That is precisely why the leadership makes them. Resentment of the U.S., and a determination to enforce Chinese hegemony in Asia, are well-nigh universal among modern mainland Chinese. These emotions trump any desire for constitutional government, however much people dislike the current regime for its corruption and incompetence. Find a mainlander, preferably one under the age of thirty, and ask him which of the following he would prefer: for the Communists to stay in power indefinitely, unreformed, but in full control of the "three T's" (Tibet, Turkestan, Taiwan); or a democratic, constitutional government without the three T's. His answer will depress you. You can even try this unhappy little experiment with dissidents: same answer.Every culture has a religion. The Chinese are remarkably irreligious in the conventional sense, except for a cargo cult version of paganism that should be familiar to anyone who's heard of the prosperity gospel. What passes in China for religion is a cult of national greatness - the model for Imperial Japan's world tour in the 1930's and 1940's. I believe China's neighbors are about to discover anew what their ancestors had to put up with on a routine basis before European adventurers set firm boundaries on Chinese territorial expansion 200 years ago. Our interest in the matter is the same as our interest in preventing Japan from annexing China during the pre-war era - it's never a good idea to allow an aggressive and ideologically hostile power to grow too big. More security for them means less security for us.Is there anything we can do about all this? One thing only. We must understand clearly that there will be lasting peace in East Asia when, and only when, China abandons her atavistic fantasies of imperial hegemony, withdraws her armies from the two million square miles of other people's territory they currently occupy, and gets herself a democratic government under a rule of law. Until that day comes, if it ever does, the danger of war will be a constant in relations between China and the world beyond the Wall, as recent events in the South China Sea have illustrated. Free nations, under the indispensable leadership of the United States, must in the meantime struggle to maintain peace, using the one, single, and only method that wretched humanity, in all its millennia of experience, has so far been able to devise for that purpose: Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
Don't worry about antagonizing China by selling arms to their rivals. You - we - are already in an unstated economic war with China, and playing nice will not help a damn bit. You may as well gently push on their pressure points and sell some kick-ass warships to Taiwan + keep some friends in the area.
China cannot afford to divest themselves of the West's frankly worthless treasuries nor confront the US over anything until they have converted as much of their debt holdings as possible to Gold.
That's going to be the real battleground of the next two years: the possession of real money and the discovery of who actually has it.
Remember: the Central Bank of China is leveraged 1300 to 1, China's GDP figures are fairy stories and they have no spare water to frack for Natural Gas with: they have to tread carefully just like we all do.
Whereas America has about one oz of Gold per capita (assuming we can believe the official figures). This as you know is a high level of gold ownership. America is a Gold superpower.
If you guys can only rid yourself of that KleptoMarxist incubus Obama and exploit/export your vast natural gas reserves you should do very well over the next nine decades. America is a Natural Gas Saudi Arabia - but with every possible resource on earth and having possession of the greatest Naval power ever.
The paper dollar is doomed (just like all paper currency the world over) but once you get used to that idea you guys are well placed to take advantage of the rest of the century.
Don't let go of your Mahan advantage, and don't be afraid to leverage it to sell stuff in China's face. You don't have to invade the Spratleys, and the Chinese can't do anything to you that you haven't already done to yourselves.
China has made clear that they want the USA out of the Pacific and where have we heard that before? Oh, right, from Japan.
My point is why do we need to wait for China to attack Pearl Harbor and other American properties in the Pacific before we stand up to them?
That would be a dangerous game. The Chinese would disastrously lose face if even a single ship started flying the Stars and Stripes (and if America had an proper President who wasn't afraid to react appropriately to a historically attested casus belli). THAT is a sign of the global reach of sea-power - the ability to wave a flag at a gun boat and get them to back off.
But as you say that level of control over freight is China's eventual aim. It's not an impossible scenario - heck, another four years of Obama and any ships near the Spratleys will be full of people fleeing the US - and China is after all a master of incremental encroachment.
So - it's a great time to sell weapons to China-suppressing proxies in the area. And a great time to maintain Global sea power.
But its a bad, bad time to put any troops in harms way on the islands. The whole point of sea-power is that you don't need to occupy ground: you just have to be able to project power when you need to.
Guys, good thread, good comments from all. I’m off to watch the Olympics.
Well then, by your logic China should be able to make claim to Catalina. Hey, it’s over twenty miles off the mainland U. S.
China wants the Spratley Island group because it extends their military’s arm in the direction of choking off Western Pacific access to the Indian Ocean.
If you didn’t know that, why are you pestering folks on a topic you know nothing about.
We are already in an economic cold war with China. They are winning.
The fact the Chinese supply lines will be far, far shorter puts them at a distinct advantage. They can put a lot of force into their region on short notice.
The other wildcard... they Chinese have observed that the American public will only support a war so long before they start getting antsy. China's leaders have no such worry.
So, it comes down to unconventional weaponry. The problem is, we're ruled by someone who despises their very presence and has vowed not to use them.
Thanks for the excellent maps.
(Big) bingo.
We have to change the rules. As it is, China has one set, everyone else has another.
That is now a disadvantage. Growing every day.
Pull out of China.
Or deal with them as equals. Nothing in between.
Interesting article. Please write more.
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