plawolf
Lieutenant General
For goodness sake, have you even taken the time to read what you are harping on about?
UNCLOS specifically states signitaries are free to opt out the provisions that China has opted out of.
You keep banging on like how China opting out of those provisions is some great cheat or breaking the rules, when in fact all China did was exercise the same options given to everyone single state who signed up to UNCLOS.
It is also hilarious how you want to impose all these moral constraints on China, while the sole superpower on the planet is infamous for its own refusal to allow any international body to impose any meaningful restraints on it's own behaviour.
The only nation on earth who is in any position to set the kind of example you want China to is the one most unwilling to do anything of the sort, and so long as American continues to practice American Expectionalism and harbours 'questionable' intentions towards China, China's leaders would have to be stupid and/or suicidal to play by the rules America itself is determined to not be bound by.
You also seem to have an uncanny ability to filter out all the unreasonable or even downright thuggish acts of all the other claiments when passing judgements on Chinese actions.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, and many of the acts you are criticising China for are direct reactions to things other countries have done first.
What America is doing in the SCS is the same trick they tried with Russia - America encourages small countries to make provocations against China and only speak out when China reacts.
The only difference is that China has thus far showing considerably more restrained than Russia in dealing with these petty insults.
That is called playing with fire. America clearly learnt nothing from Goergia and Ukriane, and are banking on its naval superimancy and Chinese patients for things to not totally blow up in the SCS.
With America's military lead and Chinese patience both wearing thin, that is an ever more risky gamble each time America throws the dice, and for what?
Sometimes America's greatest enemy is itself. It is needlessly entangling itself in a dispute that has nothing to do with it, and which has little if any impact on American national interests. Yet by needlessly getting involved, it is placing a huge risk and potential vast cost on itself.
If things keep going as they have been, once of these days, Vietnam or the Phillipines is going to miscalculate and step way over the line (they already had in the past, like opening fire on a Taiwanese fishing bait and killing the captain), and when China reflexively slaps them down, America is going to find itself with an impossible choice. Start a war it doesn't want or is guarenteed to win, or publically back-down.
