South China Sea Strategies for other nations (Not China)

advill

Junior Member
Freedom of Navigation (FON) is essential for maritime trade, whether in the South China Sea or the Indian Ocean. The problems arise when there are frequent "military FON" by any Navy or combined forces which could be interpreted as "threatening" and "suspicious", resulting in vigorous counter-responses. Naval might or "gunboat" diplomacy are no longer effective, with equally strong military power/s. The current economic "gloom", places greater importance among nations to Economic, Trade/Business, and also security threats directed by terror activities of ISIS. The Asian extremists/volunteers are returning from Syria & Iraq, and with their experiences in unconventional warfare (including lone-wolf attacks etc.), they pose serious disruptions in all countries of Asia (Southeast Asia, East Asia and South Asia). Bi-Lateral & West-East Multi-lateral Trade/business agreements should now be top priorities. A Chinese saying: "Nothing is impossible for those who have strong will".
 

B.I.B.

Captain
t has emerged that the UK plans to sail HMS Queen Elizabeth through the South China Sea in 2020 amid concerns regarding freedom of navigation in the Asia Pacific region.

HMS Queen Elizabeth will sail through the South China Sea on her maiden deployment in the 2020s

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It should be all good if she does'nt do anything threatening?
 
according to USNI News Trump Showing Signs of Changing U.S. Security Relationships in Asia
President-elect Donald Trump’s telephone conversation Friday with the president of Taiwan shows just how much the equation of the United States’ relations with nations in the Asia-Pacific could be changing.

Accepting the congratulatory call from Tsai Ing-wen was a clear signal to China that everything — from trade to diplomacy to security — was on the table for negotiation. As a statement from the transition put it: The two “noted the close economic, political and security ties” between Taiwan and the United States.

The United States has not had diplomatic relations with Taipei since 1979. After President Richard Nixon’s visit in 1972, the United States has pursued a “One China” policy, not recognizing Taiwan as an independent nation or its leaders being the legitimate government of mainland China.

Washington established formal diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979.

Beijing regards Taiwan as one of its provinces. When Communist forces under Mao Zedong prevailed in a long-running civil war, the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island in 1949, still claiming to rule the mainland.

Tsai’s party runs on a campaign favoring independence and a collation of pro-independence parties also now control Taiwan’s legislature.

Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute, said at an Atlantic Council forum in Washington, D.C. on Friday, the advisers of the president-elect are looking at the Asia-Pacific in two ways:

“In order to get Asia right, you have to get China right;” and/or “in order to get Asia right, you have to get the alliances right … to create a more stable environment,” he said at the event before the conversation with the Taiwanese leader was made public.

He added, “The ideal scenario creates a new equilibrium” in the Asia-Pacific through these bilateral arrangements, including one with Taiwan.

Beijing’s reaction to the 10-minute conversation came in a statement Saturday from Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang. “We have noticed relevant reports and lodged solemn representation with the relevant side in the United States. …I must point out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of the Chinese territory … The ‘one China’ principle is the political foundation of China-U.S. relations.”

The danger in new bilateral relations across the region is, Shihoko Goto, a senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, said, “there is the possibility of stability … but that stability would be coming from China.”

Trump has already said the United States will not ratify the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, brokered by President Barack Obama with nine other countries. The president-elect favors bilateral agreements in all those arena; and when it comes to security, allies and partners in the region, as in Europe, are expected to pay their fair share.

Hsiao said at the Atlantic Council event, “Taiwan pays for all its bills — for the most part.”
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Taipei plans to spend three percent of its gross domestic product on defense. This approach could open the door for Taipei to acquire more advanced technology for the island’s defense, possibly including F-16s and mobile air defense systems. It already announced plans to spend $4 billion to buy or build eight diesel-power submarines. At the same time, it is looking at new corvettes and mine sweepers for maritime defense. The expanded American Navy also “has a reassuring effect for the Taiwan Straits,” he added.

In a tweet, Trump wrote: “Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call.”

Also in doubt is a scheduled meeting with leaders of Japan and China to discuss trade and security issues later this month.

As for North Korea’s continued land-based and sea-based missile testing and nuclear program, “inaction [on the part of the Trump administration] will not be a choice” if Pyongyang makes a provocative move early on. In that case, “what expectations does the U.S. have with China” and “can we work more with China” become the questions to be answered in a new light of future American-Taiwanese relations.

The demise of TPP, scheduled for a ratification vote in February, presents a challenge to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who sees the agreement “as more than a trade deal” and who does not want to pursue bilateral trade pacts, Goto said. Trump often said during the campaign he would withdraw the United States from the agreement on day one of his presidency.

Abe, the first foreign leader to meet directly with the president-elect, could pursue a new multilateral arrangement without the United States in the Asia-Pacific. “Then Japan will have the single biggest economy to push it on” and this fits in Abe’s policy of raising Japan’s international stature as a significant power in trade, diplomacy and security.

If Japan does not fill the multilateral trade void with the American withdrawal, China could through its Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific, open to 21 countries, and its Comprehensive Economic Partnership, open to 16 countries.

Although ten nations took part in TPP negotiations — including Australia — another American ally, and neighboring Mexico, Korea did not. Goto said Seoul expected to be the first applicant for membership after the agreement was ratified.

Like so many other things on the peninsula, that is up in the air until the impeachment crisis is resolved.

The Trump administration will also put less stress on issues such as human rights and climate change, than the Obama administration did, Meredith Miller, vice president of the Albright Stonebridge Group, said. Myammar, as one example, would welcome less emphasis on human rights as the majority Buddhist government is fighting an Rohingya Muslim insurgency in its northwest provinces.

On the other hand, one of the largest countries in the Asia-Pacific has reservations about the incoming Trump administration policies to Muslim countries and Muslims in the United States. Many citizens in Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country, are wary of Trump’s announced plans to bar Muslims from entering the United States and having Muslims register with the government.
If the telephone call showed how relations could change with China and Taiwan, the “strategic patience” shown by the Obama administration to North Korea over its continued missile and nuclear weapons testing is also likely at an end.

But the unsettled political situation in Seoul, however, clouds the path ahead even on peninsula security matters.

“Political uncertainty facing Korea is not helping matters,” she said. President Park Geun-hye has offered to resign her office as the possibility of impeachment looms in an expanding corruption scandal. Her five-year term was to run to February 2018.

The resignation would take effect in April, if she agrees to a plan offered by her party. More than 170 members of the 300-seat National Assembly belong to opposition or independent parties.

An impeachment vote is scheduled for Thursday. News reports put her approval rating at 4 percent. For more than a month, there have large street demonstrations in the capital calling for her resignation or ouster.

An earlier announcement that Korea was willing to accept the deployment of the anti-ballistic missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system now is in question. While the United States and Korean government officials insist that the system is designed to protect Seoul from a North Korean missile attack, China looked at the decision as a provocative move against it. The decision itself was never popular with Republic of Korea opposition political leaders.
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Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
This strike group made China nervous — even without an aircraft carrier
really?

source is NavyTimes
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000-Burke-SAG-01.jpg

This group is a strong group...and you can almost bet dollars to doughnuts that at least one Virginia Class SSN was with them somewhere in the vicinity.

As I have said manty times in the past.

FON is something the Chinese are not going to be able to stp short of warfare.

But just the same, FON is not going to stop what the Chinese are doing with the islands they are constructing in the SCS.

Both sides will continue. Neither sides wants or needs to "fight" over these actions. Oh, they may (and will) make nosie about them. But both nations are too economically dependent on one another to justify any warfare over this.

If people wil just keep their cool, these actions (FON exercises by the west in the SCS, and a much strnger presence on strong bases built on Reclamation Islands by the Chinese) will become the norm in the area, and that can all happen without the need for, or any justification for combat over it.

@Blackstone @Obi Wan Russell @Brumby @SouthernSky @bd popeye @Air Force Brat
 

joshuatree

Captain
Progression of Vietnamese reclamation on Spratly Island.

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now I read A NATO to Contain China? Key US Commander Doesn’t See it
As the US continues to rebalance its military focus to the Asia-Pacific, some have speculated that a NATO-like institution in the region might be needed to counteract the expansion of Chinese power.

But Adm. Harry Harris, the head of US Pacific Command, doesn’t see that as a feasible solution – and a top Pacific defense ally agrees it would not be a tenable one.

“I do not believe we’re ever going to see a NATO in Asia,” Harris said in response to a question at the Reagan National Defense Forum Dec. 3.

Harris laid out his reasoning in simple terms: NATO was formed when there was a clear, concise enemy in the Soviet Union, and countries were lined up in support or opposition of Moscow. And despite much of the rhetoric about China that was heard at the forum, other nations in the Pacific have a much more complex relationship with their neighbor.

“In Asia, there’s not that compelling, single, focused enemy, if you will. China is part of Asia, they are part of our economic life in America and all that, so we’re not going to see in my opinion a NATO in Asia.”

Instead, Harris said, the Pentagon is focused on developing multi-lateral security networks in the region. As examples, he pointed to both the growing trilateral military cooperation between the US, Japan and South Korea, as well as counterterrorism activities among countries in Southeast Asia.

In addition, the ASEAN countries provide a broad framework for cooperation, even if the organization does not amount to a defense pact, Harris said. The ties between those nations are particularly useful for countering piracy or kidnapping for ransom, he noted.

That focus on regional networks, and in particular ASEAN, fits into the moves announced by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in late September, part of what he called the next phase in the outgoing Obama administration’s rebalance to the Pacific.

“Regional nations are developing a networked, multilateral regional security architecture — from one end of the region to the other,” Carter said in a Sept. 29 speech. Of the ASEAN meeting, “we’re going to reflect on our shared interests and principles and identify new ways to partner together to further realize them.”

The Pentagon is looking to plus up several initiatives to support that vision in the fiscal year 2018 budget request, although that funding request will be modified by the incoming Trump administration before it is submitted to Congress.

Michael Auslin, an analyst with the American Enterprise Institute and author of the upcoming book "
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," agrees that a Pacific NATO equivalent is "unsuited" for the region.

"The US Government and Pacific Command have it right, in terms of building multilateral partnerships, and taking advantage of others, like ASEAN," Auslin said. "Where we can do more, besides ensuring that we don't get left behind in regional trade agreements, is first, in partnering more effectively with our allies, especially Japan, in their efforts to build communities of interests; and second, in better linking our efforts throughout the region, so that we don't treat the East China Sea as separate from the South China Sea or Indian Ocean. It is all one interconnected strategic operating space, Asia's 'Mediterranean,' so to speak."

The complicated relationship between US allies in the Pacific and China was underlined earlier in at the forum event here, when Singaporean defense minister Ng Eng Hen offered his take on the region.

Ng warned that the US cannot simply focus on trying to contain China militarily, as it was “neither possible nor strategically necessary to contain China’s rise.” Instead, the minister said, the US needs to focus on growing relationships on the trade side – which is where the apparent death of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement is so disappointing for Singapore.

The Obama administration, including Carter, has supported TPP as a vital tool for increasing US influence in Asia, but members of Congress – and president-elect Donald Trump – have opposed the agreement.

“The US presence in the Asia-Pacific region, based predominantly on security, is unidimensional and structurally brittle,” Ng said. “The Trans-Pacific Partnership would have been a concrete, tangible commitment, and to continue to be a dominant force the US needs a multifaceted relationship with countries in Asia. And China is pursuing that multifaceted relationship with many countries.”

The minister rattled off a series of statistics underlining that situation, noting that China is the largest or second largest trading partner with “nearly every country” in Asia, and highlighting the economic ties that exist between the US and China already.

“China is now an integral leader in the global systems of trade, finance and security,” Ng concluded.

Auslin, however, predicts that China's economy will start to stagnate in coming years, which will create its own set of challenges.

"It is likely that America and its partners will face questions about how to handle a stagnating or weakening China, as much as we have been worried about a growing China," he said. "So, worrying about a united response to China may not fit the strategic necessity of ensuring that China's slowdown does not cause instability in the region."
source is DefenseNews
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Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
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Manila says will not help US on patrols in South China Sea

I hope to see the day when Manila is confident enough to confront American FON patrols in its archipelago water.
They would be foolish to do so as would China.

Short of armed conflict...you are not going to stop them...just as short of armed conflict the US is not going to stop the PRC from improving its islands, shoals, and reefs in the SCS.

Both sides will continue and it will be the new norm...but Chinese possessions and ability to influence the area will gain more strength than the US FON patrols exert.

No...unless something extraordinarily foolish goes on...I do not expect either side to challenge the other with any real, combative measures.
 
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