China's SCS Strategy Thread

Gatekeeper

Brigadier
Registered Member
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For every action there's a reaction. Haha.
After Williamson's comments. Visit by Hammonds cancelled. There's a surprise. All the hard work by the previous premier and his chancellor David Cameron and George Osborne to mend relationship with China after the holy one, Dala Lama debacle goes up in smoke.
Looks like the "Great Britain" is going to be stuck as a mediocre country!
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
The article does a reasonable comment on the overall situation.
But yeah what a self-inflicted wound there.

The Russians also have rather terrible relations with the British because of several incidents.
It does not sound to me like the UK will have a lot more trading opportunities once they leave the EU.
Probably the opposite given their foreign policy. They need to remember they do not have the Empire anymore.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
I find the release of the UK report essentially clearing Huawei as of very interesting timing.

Gavin Williamson made a muppet of himself trying to sound like some tough guy by shit talking China for no good reason, and scuttled months of quiet behind the scenes work by the treasury and foreign office.

A long planned trade mission was abruptly cancelled, and soon after the report was ‘leaked’.

I have no doubt the British had planned to use the report as a bargaining chip in the planned trade negotiations, but thanks to big mouth Gavin, they had to essentially give that card up for nothing to do damage control to get the trade meeting to happen at all.

There’s good reason Gavin was always considered one of the top muppets in the cabinet. With this cabinet, that’s saying something!
 

localizer

Colonel
Registered Member
if a country attacks another country in its territorial water is it equivalent to attacking land?

Say China considers the islands and taiwan and the waters around it to be its territory. Would US attack in those waters trigger full Chinese retaliation against US mainland? Or would US intervention be strictly in international waters and supply chain to allies?
 

Biscuits

Major
Registered Member
if a country attacks another country in its territorial water is it equivalent to attacking land?

Say China considers the islands and taiwan and the waters around it to be its territory. Would US attack in those waters trigger full Chinese retaliation against US mainland? Or would US intervention be strictly in international waters and supply chain to allies?

Legally, yes.

But practically, no.

A full scale war across both mainlands is likely to be super costly in terms of casualties and would be dangerous to the world itself.

An American attack on say Taiwan or one of the fortified islands would probably just result in a local clash, where PLA tries to retake the area and sink a decent number of USN until they deem it too costly and a peace treaty can be negotiated.
 
some time ago, Aug 26, 2017
Wednesday at 11:55 AM
now according to DefenseOne
Beijing’s Latest Moves in the South China Sea Spark Fears of a New Land Grab
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now
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China’s latest island grab: Fishing ‘militia’ makes move on sandbars around Philippines’ Thitu Island

Beijing has snatched another patch of the South China Sea, with its “militia” seizing control of a string of sandbars and denying fishermen access.

March 5, 2019 1:57pm
There’s a new name in the South China Sea’s growing list of flashpoints: Thitu Island. While nowhere near the scale of Fiery Cross or Mischief Reefs, this island and bundle of low-lying sandbars off the Philippines coast is just as significant.

It’s a prosperous fishing spot. And it’s another potential territorial marker in the hotly contested international waterway.

Now, China has physically staked its claim over the sandbars that surround it.

Filipino fishermen say they are being driven away from their traditional fishing grounds, by Chinese boats.

LINE IN THE SAND

The waters between Thitu Island and Subi Reef, both of which are near the northwestern Philippines, have long been claimed as part of its territorial waters.

But, since 2015, China simply took over Subi Reef and used land-reclamation engineering to turn it into an enormous naval and air force fortress.

Beijing has recently staked a claim to almost the entire South China Sea, even though it extends far to the south and east of the mainland. It includes waters claimed by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Now the Chinese Communist Party’s fishing ‘militia’ is pushing out its boundaries.

Mayor Roberto del Mundo of Kalayaan, a Philippines Palawan town which administers Thitu Island, has
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.

Thitu Island itself is home to a Philippines slipway, jetty, runway and anchorage. But fishermen attempting to operate from there are being turned back as soon as they approach the nearest sandbar just 3km off the island’s coast.

“It means they (the Chinese) think they own it because they refuse to leave. If they’re just really fishing, they can leave for Subi Reef and then come back, but they no longer leave,” Del Mundo said.

“The presence of Chinese boats is now affecting our fishing activities. It wasn’t that way before. When our fishermen is about to get near Sandbar 3, that is really our fishing ground, a Chinese vessel would immediately come up to us to ward us off so we can’t come closer.”

And he’s worried about the future of Thitu Island itself.

“On January 22 at 7 in the evening, I personally witnessed a helicopter that flew over the island. It did not flash a spotlight (searchlight) … It happened fast; it made a few rounds and then it left,” Del Mundo told the Inquirer.

“We were nervous because it might erupt into something. But we just stared at it until it left. It went towards (the Chinese fortress of) Subi Reef. It headed towards Subi because on the other side there’s nothing there.”

GAME OF ISLANDS

In 2017, China protested that the Philippines had breached an agreement not to occupy the sandbars with the construction of a ramshackle fisherman’s shelter.

The Philippine’s controversial President, Rodrigo Duterte, ordered his military to tear it down as part of his ongoing policy of appeasement towards Beijing.

This is despite the Philippines winning an appeal to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which had been instigated by President Duterte’s predecessor.

It found Beijing had no traditional or historical right to the South China Sea’s scattering of small islands and reefs. As such, the Philippines had territorial rights over the resources of the West Philippine Sea under the UN’s exclusive economic zone laws.

President Duterte, however, has not acted to assert the Philippines rights as defined by the ruling. He has openly stated he has no desire to upset his mighty neighbour by challenging its seizure of his country’s territory.

But now China’s fishing fleet and military-controlled coast guard have begun swarming around Thitu Island, many Filipinos are becoming restless.

Beijing has just declared a major increase in its defence budget.

Its stated purpose: “for safeguarding the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of the country. It is not a threat to other countries,” congress spokesman Zhang Yesui said at this week’s Two Houses assembly of Chinese Communist Party members.

The problem is, other nations also consider parts of the South China Sea as key parts of their own sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.

China’s armed forces have undergone a thorough expansion and modernisation program in recent years, raising concerns among its neighbours.

China also claims ownership of East China Sea islands controlled by traditional rival Japan and threatens to attack self-governing Taiwan to take control of what it regardsas a breakaway Chinese territory.

President Xi Jinping has cast himself as an ardent nationalist and foreign policy hawk, protecting himself from accusations of being too soft toward the West.
 
40 minutes ago
some time ago, Aug 26, 2017
now
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China’s latest island grab: Fishing ‘militia’ makes move on sandbars around Philippines’ Thitu Island

Beijing has snatched another patch of the South China Sea, with its “militia” seizing control of a string of sandbars and denying fishermen access.

March 5, 2019 1:57pm
and those sandbars also inside
Philippines Worried It May Get Involved in War at Sea for US
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plawolf

Lieutenant General
Even the Philippines is worried a shooting war may occur anytime. Island defense for the islands needs to be expedited to defend against the escalating belligerence at this important Chinese trade route.

Read between the lines. The US took the unprecedented step of dispensing with their historically preferred position of stratetic ambiguity to clarify that it would come to the defence of the Philippines if attacked (by China) in the SCS, that is a huge carrot that the US has just given up to the Philippines.

But soon after, you have the Philippines defence minister no less, effectively publicly calling for a re-evaluation of the Mutual Defense Treaty.

Now it’s a very different picture emerging. Instead of one of US strength, it’s one of American weakness.

It just offered up a huge concession, but still the Philippines is publicly making noises to step away from their mutual defence treaty. Of course the western media would do all it can to obscure that fact, but this very much looks like a huge crack appearing in America’s much vaunted network of alliances.
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
Read between the lines. The US took the unprecedented step of dispensing with their historically preferred position of stratetic ambiguity to clarify that it would come to the defence of the Philippines if attacked (by China) in the SCS, that is a huge carrot that the US has just given up to the Philippines.

But soon after, you have the Philippines defence minister no less, effectively publicly calling for a re-evaluation of the Mutual Defense Treaty.

Now it’s a very different picture emerging. Instead of one of US strength, it’s one of American weakness.

It just offered up a huge concession, but still the Philippines is publicly making noises to step away from their mutual defence treaty. Of course the western media would do all it can to obscure that fact, but this very much looks like a huge crack appearing in America’s much vaunted network of alliances.

Of course the Phillipines government did something like that. This US administration has a lot of talk, but if push actually came to shove they would only act on their own interests. They don't respect treaties let alone unsubstantiated comments like this.
 
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