China's SCS Strategy Thread

[ahojunk]

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June 2, 2016 - 3:33PM
Ben Blanchard

Beijing: China's has welcomed a proposal by the incoming Philippine government for bilateral talks on the disputed South China Sea.

China claims almost the whole of the South China Sea while the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims. The sea is rich in oil, gas and fish, and trade worth trillions of dollars passes through it each year.

Tension between the Philippines and China have risen as an international tribunal in the Hague prepares to deliver a ruling in the next few months in a case about the South China Sea lodged by Manila in 2013.

The Philippines is seeking a clarification of UN maritime laws that could undermine China's claims to 90 per cent of the South China Sea. China has rejected the court's authority.

Philippines President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has backed multilateral talks to settle rows over the South China Sea that would include the United States, Japan and Australia as well as claimant nations. He also threatened to personally take a jet ski to the area to settle the dispute.

And he called on China to respect the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone granted to coastal states under international law.

But he said his country would not rely on long-term security ally the United States, signalling greater independence from Washington in dealing with China.

In turn, China said the US should not decide its policy on the South China Sea based on what its allies think, and should stick to its promises not to take sides in the dispute, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Thursday.



The outspoken Rodrigo Duterte. Photo: AP

China has been angered by what it views as provocative US military patrols close to islands China controls in the South China Sea. The US says the patrols are to protect freedom of navigation.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims, as well as close military ties with Washington.

Speaking at a forum ahead of next week's high-level meetings with US officials in Beijing, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said his country had every right to protect its sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea.

"In fact the United States is not a claimant in the South China Sea dispute, and its said it takes no position on territorial disputes," Mr Zheng said.

"So we hope the US can stick to its promises and not choose sides, but can set its position based on the rights and wrongs of the case rather than whether somebody is an ally," he added.

Last month, Beijing demanded an end to US surveillance of the area after two Chinese fighter jets carried out what the Pentagon said was an "unsafe" intercept of a US military reconnaissance aircraft.

"China's development won't threaten any country," Mr Zheng said. "I hope certain people in the United States set themselves straight and spurn Cold War thinking."

China hopes to get relations with the Philippines back on track, President Xi Jinping told Mr Duterte this week.

 

[ahojunk]

I was surprised that China finally decided to make a statement to support Taiping Island.

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2016-06-03 13:00:53 | Xinhua Web | Editor: Zhang Peng

File photo shows Taiping Dao in the South China Sea on April 23, 2015. [Photo: Baidu.com]​

History and facts show that Taiping Dao in the South China Sea is an island rather than a rock, said a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Friday.

"China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and its adjacent waters, including Taiping Dao. China has, based on the Nansha Islands as a whole, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying.

As reported by some foreign media, the Philippines and an arbitral tribunal are attempting to characterize Taiping Dao as a "rock" other than an "island." However, according to experts and journalists who recently visited Taiping Dao, it is an island boasting plenty of fresh water and lush vegetation. The installations and facilities for medical care, postal service, energy generation, and scientific research are all available and in good working condition. It is vibrant and lively everywhere on this island.

"Over the history, Chinese fishermen have resided on Taiping Dao for years, working and living there, carrying out fishing activities, digging wells for fresh water, cultivating land and farming, building huts and temples, and raising livestock," Hua said when asked to comment on the media report.

She added that the above activities are all manifestly recorded in Geng Lu Bu (Manual of Sea Routes), which was passed down from generation to generation among Chinese fishermen, as well as in many western navigation logs before the 1930s.

Geng Lu Bu, created collectively by Chinese fishermen more than 600 years ago, records not only the terrain features and oceanic condition of the islands in the South China Sea, but also names the islands, marks their locations and identifies reefs, shipping lanes and fisheries.

"The working and living practice of Chinese people on Taiping Dao fully proves that Taiping Dao is an 'island' which is completely capable of sustaining human habitation or economic life of its own," Hua said.

She said the Philippines' attempt to characterize Taiping Dao as a "rock" exposed that its purpose of initiating the arbitration is to deny China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and relevant maritime rights and interests.

The Philippines' move violates international law, and is totally unacceptable, according to the spokesperson.

 

[antiterror13]

I was surprised that China finally decided to make a statement to support Taiping Island.

------

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....
....

The Philippines' move violates international law, and is totally unacceptable, according to the spokesperson.

Hi Ahojunk ..... I am indeed surprised to read you are surprised of China statement.

If Taiping is a rock, it will complicate the Philipine claim, thats what China and clearly on China favour

 

[ahojunk]

Hi Ahojunk ..... I am indeed surprised to read you are surprised of China statement.

If Taiping is a rock, it will complicate the Philipine claim, thats what China and clearly on China favour

I understand the statement is definitely to China's advantage.

But I don't remember China has ever said anything about any of Taiwan's islands in the South China Sea, but I could be wrong.

But it's all good. Let's move on.

 

[SouthernSky]

And China rise in the future are brighter than any of the G7 members. Next cliché comment.

The future is less certain than the present.

 

[ahojunk]

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2016-06-01 13:47 | Xinhua | Editor: Mo Hong'e

The China Fisheries Association issued on Wednesday a statement on the South China Sea arbitration case unilaterally initiated by the Philippines. Following is the full text of the statement's English version:

China Fisheries Association

A statement on the South China Sea Arbitration Case Unilaterally Initiated by the Republic of the Philippines

To preserve the fishery resources on which Chinese fishermen depend for their livelihood, and to uphold their traditional fishery interests, the China Fisheries Association (CFA) hereby makes the following solemn statement on the South China Sea arbitration case unilaterally initiated by the Republic of the Philippines:

1. Since the relevant waters involved in this arbitration case are traditional fishing ground on which Chinese fishermen based for generations, an arbitration award, once given, may cause damage to their rights to product and have serious negative impact on their livelihood. As the representative body of the rights and interests of Chinese fishermen, CFA pays close attention to the arbitration case and would by no means accept or recognize any infringement act aiming at Chinese fishery resources and Chinese fishermen's rights and interests.

2. The South China Sea Islands have been China's territory since ancient times. China is the real master of the South China Sea Islands. No country, organization or individual is in a position to deny China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, including the right to fishery resources.

3. CFA firmly supports China's stance of opposing the Philippines' unilateral initiation of the arbitration case. The acts of the Philippines and that of the Arbitral Tribunal violate the agreement between China and the Philippines to settle relevant disputes through negotiations, the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, and the declaration on optional exceptions China made in 2006 pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Arbitral Tribunal has no jurisdiction over the case. Any award the Arbitral Tribunal may render will be illegal and invalid, has no binding force, and will be ignored by CFA and Chinese fishermen.

China Fisheries Association

1 June, 2016

 

[Equation]

The future is less certain than the present.

So is all the prediction of a Chinese doom coming. All the naysayers and doubters just can't stand it to see China keeps on rising and disproving the haters out there.

 

[AndrewS]

Personally I think it reasonable to expect China to track the path of the other East Asian Economic Tigers.

They all worked through the problems of rampant overinvestment, low consumer spending, numerous currency/economic crashes, being polluted hell-holes, shrinking labour forces, etc etc

Yet at the end of the day, this hasn't stopped them from becoming wealthy hi-tech countries with a variety of governing models.

 

[A.Man]

How the Pentagon is blowing America's relationship with China

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June 4, 2016

When China

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in Hong Kong at the end of April, it got only modest mention in news reports. But keeping the nuclear-powered supercarrier and its strike group out of a port where American ships have docked for decades is a calculated signal of worsening relations between Washington and Beijing — passive aggression in very pure form.

Given that Hong Kong is among the busiest commercial ports in Asia, we're on notice now. Every American with an interest in our dense, multisided trade and investment relationships with China should start paying close attention to the mounting tensions between Beijing and Washington.

The first thing you see is this: America's economic ties with China have been out of whack with national security policy since Deng Xiaoping's reforms began opening China in the early 1980s. Business booms, while military and geopolitical competition intensifies.

This isn't going to do any longer. There is an emerging danger that rivalry for strategic influence in the western Pacific will damage trade and investment relations.

Beijing was characteristically subtle but perfectly clear when asked why it refused the Stennis port privileges. The foreign ministry told

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, Hong Kong's leading English-language daily, that port calls were approved "on a case by case basis in accordance with sovereignty principles and specific circumstances." A ministry official in Hong Kong then stated the visit was "not convenient."


The "specific circumstances" were lost on no one. Two weeks earlier Defense Secretary Ashton Carter

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as it passed through the South China Sea and declared, "The United States intends to continue to play a role out here that it has for seven decades."

A week later the U.S. Pacific Command sent six heavily armed A-10 Thunderbolts on flights near the Scarborough Shoal, which is among the disputed land formations in the South China Sea over which Beijing claims sovereignty.

Allowing or refusing port calls has long featured in Asia's diplomatic sign language. When ties between Beijing and Tokyo temporarily warmed in 2008, a

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for the first time since World War II.

Keeping the Stennis out of Hong Kong harbor was a big, worrisome move, laden with symbolism in the Chinese fashion. There are three implications.

One, choosing Hong Kong as the venue to respond to Carter's assertion of U.S. primacy in the Pacific signals that China views its relations with the U.S. as unitary. While trade and investment are mutually beneficial, economic ties are not immune to fallout from sharpening political and diplomatic friction.

Two, China will go to the wall as it asserts its influence in the western Pacific. Regardless of what may be at stake, no challenge from the U.S. has a prayer of forcing Beijing to accept the 70-year status quo Carter indelicately referenced aboard the Stennis.

Finally, Hong Kong's status as a special administrative region in the Sino-British treaty that reestablished Chinese sovereignty in 1997 does not make the territory some kind of protected zone. The fact that U.S. warships are common sights along Victoria Harbor only magnifies the sharp edge of Beijing's gesture.

Good sinologists would understand these things. There's a lot of history and culture and 175 years of wounded pride in China's drive to "stand up," as Mao famously put it. This has to be reckoned with.

But defense secretaries and fleet commanders such as

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, trained in operational expertise but rarely diplomacy, do not generally make good sinologists. This is the root reason Washington's China policies are so discombobulated.

Beijing hasn't tagged a single iPhone or fashion accessory as an instrument of retaliation as strategic and geopolitical tensions mount. No one's suggesting this. But there's less room every day for complacency on this score in the American business and investment communities. Sooner or later, both sides of the relationship are bound to intersect.

The State Department once boasted an honorable tradition of diplomats trained in Asian languages, cultures, and histories. Some of these people were scapegoats during the "Who lost China?" arguments after the 1949 revolution, and the Pentagon gradually eclipsed State in the policy-planning space during the Cold War. By the Reagan years the process was more or less complete.

It's time to revive the tradition. We need big-picture diplomats capable of integrating politics, economics, and national security questions — men and women trained to understand China's perspective even if they entertain no sympathy for it.

Whether we like it or not, China has a place in maintaining security in its neighborhood. The sooner Washington accepts that seven decades of unchallenged primacy are over, the easier it will be to continue exercising a very considerable degree of influence, as others in the region clearly welcome.

 

[ahojunk]

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2016-06-05 09:35:00 CRIENGLISH.com Web Editor: Fei Fei

The Chinese foreign ministry is demanding the United States and Japan stop pointing fingers at China on the South China Sea.

It's a response to remarks made by U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his Japanese counterpart Gen Nakatani at the Shangri-La security summit in Singapore.

Cater has suggested China's military activities in the South China Sea are isolating itself.

In countering the suggestion, the Chinese Foreign Ministry says China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters, saying any construction activities on islands and reefs in the area are legitimate.

Chinese Admiral Sun Jianguo, head of Chinese delegation to the Shangri-La Dialogue, has also called on Japan to respect China's interests and concerns, and not to intervene in or hype up the South China Sea.

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has issued a statement at the talks in Singapore, saying maritime issue should not become a zero-sum game for the region.

Indonesia's Defense Minister says the UN Charter and other documents need to be given full consideration, saying disputes in the South China Sea need to be resolved step by step.