Posted on 06/08/2014 10:36:36 AM PDT by blam
The move indicates a shift from defence to offence in the East and South China seas
Sunday, 08 June, 2014, 10:32am
Kristine Kwok and Minnie Chan
China is looking to expand its biggest installation in the Spratly Islands into a fully formed artificial island, complete with airstrip and sea port, to better project its military strength in the South China Sea, a Chinese scholar and a Chinese navy expert have said.
The planned expansion on the disputed Fiery Cross Reef, if approved, would be a further indication of China's change of tack in handling long-running sovereignty disputes from a defensive stance to an offensive one, analysts said. They said it was seen as a step to the declaration of an air defence identification zone.
The Philippines last month protested against China's reclamation activities at nearby Johnson South Reef, site of a 1988 skirmish between the Chinese and Vietnamese navies that was triggered by China's occupation of Fiery Cross Reef.
With recent developments in the South China Sea having again focused the international spotlight on China, the analysts warned reclamation at the Fiery Cross atoll - which China, the Philippines and Vietnam all claim - would further strain Beijing's relations with neighbours.
The proposal to build an artificial island there had been submitted to the central government, said Jin Canrong , a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. The artificial island would be at least double the size of the US military base of Diego Garcia, a remote coral atoll occupying an area of 44 square kilometres in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Jin added.
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(Excerpt) Read more at scmp.com ...
I hope this fancy new island lair has sharks with lasers guarding it.
Laaazzzzerssss.
Grab the popcorn. It’s not that easy to build and maintain a viable island. I believe the one Japan built for their airport is continually sinking.
The Chinese obviously aren’t worried about the rising seas predicted by the ultimate scholar Al Gore.
I can still remember when we said the same about Japan.
Anything with the Made In Japan label was junk.
This American guy changed it all!
Ah , work for , Bond ,James bond
Good point but there are significant differences between and China and Japan.
China is a collection of warring tribes and always has been. Their culture doesn’t value quality, honor or integrity.
Like Guam, will it tilt once it is fully manned??
They are conflicted about it. They execute people that they think have cheated badly enough.
Anything with the Made In Japan label was junk.’
Actually it was a number of Oriental gentlemen including this fellow that accomplished that:
http://www.warbirdforum.com/sakai.htm
FDR was among a lot of establishment insiders who thought those silly little people in Japan might be useful as the mechanism to get the US fully into the war against Hitler but dismissed the Gentlemen of Japan as being any real military threat. The Japanese were congenitally near sighted, their skull shape indicated that they had only a simian capacity for mimicking us higher life forms from the West. Also their skull shape prevented them from having good peripheral vision, a vital necessity for good combat pilots.So they would never be able to outsmart us or outfight us. They were physically puny and understrength so Americans and Brits could easily handle such creatures on the battlefield.
Umm, so sorry, those stereotypes detonated on 7 December 1941 and the US got a crash course in how mocking chauvinistic attitudes could have some real bad consequences.
China today reminds me of Japan in the 1920’s only this time it is a country with a big landbase and a pretty big population and the capacity to equal or exceed the US technologically.
With leaders like the Mahdi and Hilda we could be in for a replay of the Great pacific War with a somewhat different ending.
This will actually cause the sea levels to rise, or did the libs not realize this?
I strongly disagree.
China has over a billion people, and outdoes us nearly 4/1 on the trade front.
America is losing to China, in trade. Bigtime.
They are only winning because we gave it to them and then tight them how.
Without our buying they cease.
Yet here we are.
Buying like mad.
Last year, China sold America 440 billion dollars worth of goods.
In the same year, China only bought from America 122 billion dollars worth of goods.
We are currently losing, badly. So I agree with you, in part in your statement “without our buying they cease”.
(in part)
Yet here we are. Buying faster then ever.
So I don’t really agree, at all.
There is a reason countries like China, India, and Saudia Arabia spend millions lobbying our Congress.
Because it works.
(I have to say, your response is among the most intelligent I have had, in quite a while)
Bingo.
America’s politicians are it appears, completely sold.
Congratulations. Very well put.
I think this is rapidly becoming a (very big) issue.
China has been expanding quite rapidly, at the expense of quite a bit of the rest of the world.
China needs to distribute benefit from its economy. And America needs to be far more aggressive, taking care of our own house.
We cannot give the world to China. Currently things are heading that way.
It is not a plan. Just saying.
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