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Meet Fiery Cross Reef, China's Man-Made Military Island Outpost
Last week, we noted the hilarious irony in President Obama’s contention that China was “using its sheer size and muscle to force other countries into subordinate positions.” That of course, is a picture perfect description of US foreign policy and so the statement by the President is effectively an indictment of Washington’s own actions.
Obama’s remarks were made in the context of China’s construction “activities” in the South China Sea where Beijing shares contested waters with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Essentially, China is building islands atop the Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly archipelago, which some believe will be used for military purposes. Here’s NY Times, summarizing:
The construction on Fiery Cross Reef is part of a larger Chinese reclamation project involving scores of dredgers on at least five islands in the South China Sea. China is converting tiny reefs, once barely visible above water, into islands big enough to handle military hardware, personnel and recreation facilities for workers.
Satellite images of the reclamation efforts have been released in steady doses over the last few months, as smaller countries with claims to islands in the area have voiced concern about China’s accelerated construction, and as the United States has stepped up its criticism...
China claims more than 80 percent of the South China Sea, arguing that a “nine-dash line” that it drew around the waterway in the late 1940s conforms to its rights there. No other country recognizes the validity of the nine-dash line, and many fear that China’s reclamation activities are part of a drive to create an inevitability about Chinese ownership.
Now, a series of satellite images have confirmed the construction of a 10,000 foot runway on the reef, which would appear to suggest that China may be planning on landing military aircraft such as fighter jets on the reclaimed islands. Here, in glorious HD, are the visuals accompanied by descriptions via the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative:
Satellite photography has identified three cement plants operating on the island.
China has already constructed in excess of 60 semi-permanent or permanent buildings.
At least 20 structures are visible on the southern side of the island (ZH: including a helipad).
China is building an airstrip on the island. The airstrip is likely large enough to land nearly any Chinese aircraft.
Images taken on April 11 show the runway more than one-third complete.
Beijing is also installing port facilities which may be capable of docking military tankers.
Full interactive report available here from the AMTI
Here’s more color from NY Times on what this may mean from a military and geopolitical perspective:
The runway, which is expected to be about 10,000 feet long — enough to accommodate fighter jets and surveillance aircraft — is a game changer in the competition between the United States and China in the South China Sea, said Peter Dutton, professor of strategic studies at the Naval War College in Rhode Island.
“This is a major strategic event,” Mr. Dutton said. “In order to have sea control, you need to have air control…”
In time, Mr. Dutton said, China is likely to install radar and missiles that could intimidate countries like the Philippines, an American ally, and Vietnam, which also have claims to the Spratlys, as they resupply modest military garrisons in the area.
More broadly, he said, China’s ability to use Fiery Cross Reef as a landing strip for fighter and surveillance aircraft will vastly expand its zone of competition with the United States in the South China Sea…
“We absolutely think it is for military aircraft, but of course an airstrip is an airstrip — anything can land on it if it’s long enough,” said James Hardy, Asia-Pacific editor for Jane’s Defense Weekly...
“The main question is, what else would land there?” he said. “Unless they are planning to turn these into resorts — which seems unlikely, not least given the statement from the Foreign Ministry last week — then military aircraft are the only things that would need to land there.”
And a bit more from Reuters:
Senator John McCain, chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, called the Chinese moves "aggressive" and said they showed the need for the Obama administration to act on plans to move more military resources into the economically important Asian region and boost cooperation with Asian countries worried by China.
McCain referred to a U.S. intelligence assessment from February that China's military modernization was designed to counteract U.S. strength and said Washington had a lot of work ahead to maintain its military advantage in the Asia-Pacific.
"When any nation fills in 600 acres of land and builds runways and most likely is putting in other kinds of military capabilities in what is international waters, it is clearly a threat to where the world's economy is going, has gone, and will remain for the foreseeable future," he told a public briefing in Congress.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said the scale of China’s land reclamation and construction was fueling concerns within the region that China intends to militarize its outposts and stressed the importance of freedom of navigation.
"The United States has a strong interest in preservation of peace and security in the SouthChina Sea. We do not believe that large-scale land reclamation with the intent to militarize outposts on disputed land features is consistent with the region’s desire for peace and stability."
* * *
This comes at an interesting time for relations between Beijing and Washington. China’s recent move to evacuate foreign nationals from the embattled Yemeni port city of Aden marked the first time the rising superpower has participated in an international rescue effort. During the same week, state television indicated the country would begin its first patrol by nuclear submarine later this year.
Meanwhile, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank marks a coup in the post-war economic era, as the multilateral institution will seek to plug holes left by the US-dominated IMF and the Japan-influenced ADB, while simultaneously positioning the yuan to play a more prominent role in what is quickly becoming a new economic world order characterized by the ascendancy of the renminbi and the decline of traditional systems that have supported dollar hegemony such as petrocurrency mercantilism. While it’s unclear exactly how ambitious Beijing hopes to be in terms of turning the Spratlys into a military outpost, China’s bold development efforts underscore the degree to which the country isn’t timid when it comes to advancing its interests in the face of Western admonition.
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That's a lot of Chinks in the drink.
** Crickets **
FUCK THIS. THAT WATER LOOKS SO INVITING AND WE GET TO LOOK AT IT FROM A TRADING DESK. RATHER BE THERE BEACHSIDE SIPPING ON SOMETHING RIDICULOUS ON THE ROCKS WITH A SMOKING HOTTIE - PARTAY.
Meanwhile in other news:
Washington Post: 'Thousands of Iraqis flee as Islamic State makes gains in Sunni heartland'
That's what you get from the District of Criminals and the real Zero - CRAP.
Territory belongs to those with the means and will to hold it.
Maybe we could sic Greenpeace on them.... environmentalists? Anyone? Buehler?
Greenpeace exists to exploit guilt and money from rich white people.
Don't forget the dumb poor hippies. Who do you think does all the leg work and heavy lifting? ...and they fucking volunteer to do it as well! Greenpeace is like a double ended dildo.
No, this is not building a hotel resort chain, it's a territorial claim backed by military claims. Just try sailing in there and see if you remain unmolested, or undamaged and afloat if you do not leave immediately. Listen to their loud hailer messages from their patrol boats, re their claim to the entire South China Sea.
Ah, and there's that ridiculous outright propaganda lie once more. The PLAN has been patrolling with nuclear subs since about 1975 and an SSBN since at least 1988.
So that ludicrous claim is purely a case of lies to flash teeth as threat, it can be regarded in no other way. Whilst they simultaneously pretend it's a new capability (i.e. they are in effect asserting they have been recently driven against their will to do it, that is the lie they will tell their people, and any one who will listen to their cynical bullshit claim of innocence and peaceful intents) and that they're not being aggressive or actually physically annexing the territorial claims of half a dozen SEA states, while Beijing facetiously pretends to want peaceful relations with all of them.
Which it plainly doesn't
What Beijing wants is air and sea dominance over SEA, with a gun pointed in their mouth. It's closer to a bank heist, in daylight, on main street, while pretending they're just refurbishing the vault.
Beijing is running through the usual Sun Tzu repertoire here, and its words diplomacy and trade dealings have to be viewed in that furtive passive-aggressive pre-war context. To them this is a 'negotiation' of boundaries via a spectrum-conflict. To be in the 'negotiations' or to matter at all you have to meaningfully alter the boundary via being in the spectrum-conflict, and pushing back on the boundary, effectively.
Like they are.
Otherwise you are not in the negotiation process, at all, and are simply conceding an annexation, until the next negotiation phase of new frontiers begins. This is just the first bite of the cherry, this is a process they'll follow with every defacto concession, an assurance of more spectrum-conflict negotiations to come.
There will be no other process of negotiation, the diplomacy will be a distraction from the real negotiations, and not an effective resolution mechanism for resolution is not on the cards at this point. They will stop only when they can't sustain or make headway via intrusion into other country's territorial claims, and can't make any annexations stick.
As we will soon discover, Beijing is determined to be the anti-thesis of the USA status-quo power, and that will lead to intense negotiation of many boundaries and diplomacy will not be its mechanism, diplomacy will just be the window-dressing off a full spectrum-conflict. Claims of innocence, of being a wronged and the historically aggrieved party, or of peaceful intent and cynical use of diplomatic channels as essential and necessary by Beijing, have to be taken with a large grain of salt from here on.
Their actions are the truth.
We should take some guidance inputs and insight from the Vietnamese culture on what the Chinese historically do (for about the past 9,000 years) regarding territorial boundaries and neighbors which they wish to dominate or control. The sooner everyone is awake to the Sun-Tzu-like tactics in play here the sooner we'll be effective in the spectrum-conflict negotiations, and better understand the word-illusion play, and the physical actions.
An air and naval exclusion zone with a time limit to leave, to enter into actual binding civil legal negotiations, will predictably be the result at that point. And the Chinese will of course say to get stuffed, to everyone, and will flash their teeth all the more at everyone and pull their hair out and act all crazy.
The US and allies will (a fair bit more coolly) do the same, and take up firing positions. Then once the time limit to leave has expired, everything on those islands will be destroyed, and any military ships or aircraft in or entering into that military exclusion zone, will be eliminated.
The status-quo powers and major SEA states will make sure of this.
And China will be left to bleat hollowly about the evils of foreign meddling in Chinese internal affairs. And that is the first round of the negotiations out of the way, the second round will commence shortly thereafter, or more-or-less in parallel.
Back to the future once again.
Another Troll!
Son of a bitch! (Puta que o pariu ! - (em português do Brasil)).
hehe.
US has 200 military bases around the globe and the US Neocon is bitching about China turning 1 reef island into a military outpost in South China Sea
Tell that to Vietnam, Philippine, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
They may suggest though in retort that you STFU.
The fishermen of Vietnam and the Philippines have a legitimate gripe about Chinese interference. And -to the extent that the people of these countries rely on the sea for a significant portion of their food- the nations themselves share this grievance against China.
As for mineral rights: none of the countries of Southeast Asia have the means to explore and extract mineral resources from the China Sea. They just want the United States to enforce their claims so that they can sell these rights to Exxon-Mobil or to Royal Dutch-Shell and make some easy money off of them.
If the ASEAN countries went to China and offered to limit their mineral rights to no more than 100 kilometers (63 miles) off their shorelines in return for unrestricted fishing rights throughout the China Sea, I think that the Chinese would agree.
I don't disagree in principle, but that would be a negotiation in good faith and China is demonstrating that it isn't interested as it has its state strategic aims and objectives which are long term, not short term. It has prebuilt the forces and infrastructure and logistics necessary to do what it is currently doing, and it clearly intends to stuff as many air and naval forces into the southern South China Sea area as they can, aimed at dominating South East Asia, no matter what they say or do, from here.
The Pentagon has apparently decided some years ago that the Chinese are not going to be amenable to diplomatic overtures to end their current activities in the SCS (which have been seen coming for years, btw) and have decided to arm up every surface vessel and aircraft, and to move forces and forward logistic capacity into the Pacific, for that reason. Just last week the USN announced (to much surprise) that it is not going to be shrinking its fleet at all, it is in fact going to expand it to 308 ships and subs, and is accelerating and expanding sub production. Same is happening in virtually every significant navy in East Asia, SEA and Australia.
SEA is also not sitting on its hands, many states are apparently presuming a conflict with China is likely to develop. As I pointed out a few days ago the region's air forces are looking to rapidly upgrade and expand their air and naval forces and integrate with the the larger US allied pacific powers (US, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Aust). Singapore and also south Korea plus Japan are currently going all out to arm up with both their air and naval forces (as is Taiwan).
Singapore is likewise going to upgrade all of its F-16 fleet(s), and it seems it has now bought 40 brand new latest derived version of the F-15E theater strike aircraft. Singapore was originally going to buy only 12 of them, then 20, then 24. Then it was discovered recently that Boeing had secretly built 16 more F-15s for an undisclosed customer which it appears turned out to be Singapore (South Korea has been doing similar). But Singapore is also going to retire its old F-5s and replace them with the F-35.
Plus they maintain a training squadron of 12 F-16s permanently in the USA and another fast jet training squadron in France. And they regularly fly F-15s and F-16s into Australia for large-area fast maneuver attack and defense training with RAAF and US aircraft, over water and land. That is something they can not do in SEA or USA or France to anything like a similar level. They're extremely well equipped, and highly trained, fly as many hours as RAAF pilot, and are easily the most capable and motivated air force in SEA. They have also just ordered A330 multirole tanker transports (same as Australia's) and are routinely integrating with the RAAF, RAN, USAF, USN and USMC in joint exercises.
Malaysia and Indonesia are still well behind Singapore's level of preparedness and strike potential, but still capable and also moving to rapidly arm up their navy and air force aircraft and weapon stocks. Thailand and Vietnam also of course. And the Philippines are now receiving everyone's hand me down jets, helicopters, ships and just bought some new fast jet trainers from South Korea in order to rebuild an air force capability.
Indonesian govt is still pissed about Australia spying on the former Indo govt (and that's never going to stop, under any circumstances, it has been occurring since WWII and their objections and expectations are totally unrealistic, bordering on childish pouting) and US forces being reintroduced in Darwin without consultation (given the Indos invaded East Timor and West Papua in the 1970s with zero consultation with the western world they have a cheek demanding it of others) and several other US base locations in SEA. So the new Indonesian President is rather immature and has a chip on his shoulder about prosaics, so Indonesia's progress and preparation is impaired by its leadership's attitudes and introspection, but their military is very keen to arm and counter the keenly perceived Chinese threat to Indonesian territorial sovereignty in the South China Sea. The Indonesians also resent Singapore being very close to Australia and USA, and for having such a spectacularly capable military force, which easily makes Indonesia military look very ordinary.
Russia and China are also courting to wedge Indonesia with weapon sales and have sold fighters and recently the domestic production of Chinese anti-ship missiles within Indonesia. So it remains to be seen if the new President is going to continue with his anti-western flirtations with China and Russia. My guess is the Indonesian military will make him snap out of it.
The EU Typhoon is also being avidly proposed for Indonesia and they've now offered a final assembly line in Indonesia as well. But if money is tight (when isn't it) they're more likely to go for a cheaper single engine high capability jet like new F-16s with conformal tanks, cheaper to buy, cheaper to operate, good range, looses little in fighter or attack capability.
Malaysia is also ill-prepared at present but is moving rapidly to remedy that as a priority but with limited funds available. They have just bought some impressive new frigates, but it remains to be seen which way they go with new fighters but they are only interested in western fighters at present. They currently operate about an equal mix of US and Russian fighters with relatively new SU-30MKMs, and an F/A-18D squadron for maritime attack and aging F-5s. Despite the age of the F-5s it is the MiG-29s being phased out and replaced first, with the outcome of their "MRCA" fighter replacement program, that's currently been narrowed down to 4 types, the Eurofighter, Dassault Rafale, F/A-18F Super Hornets or the light weight Saab JAS 39 Gripen. I think the Gripen is a very unlikely choice due to short range and limited combat payloads (unless lower cost is the real deciding factor that is, but it was also designed for Nordic areas, not maritime equatorial heat, corrosives and humidity). So a twin-engine advanced late-block western strikefighter is almost certainly what they will operate, alongside their Su-30 fleet. Malaysia has also had the usual problem with unreliable and expensive to maintain Russian engines and want to steer clear of them. Then they are faced with replacing the F-5s, and buying a single engine western fighter will be cheaper to operate than a twin, so the F-16 is a likely candidate for that, given the US plans to keep operating F-16s and upgrading them in USAF until about 2030.
Between now and 2020 all of SEA's military forces will be a lot more ready and able to make sustained air patrols and if necessary take strong joint military action in the South China Sea.
So I don't see them as about to fold up their deck chair and just let Beijing have the entire South China sea like you suggest to place its warships, long range SAMs, ground launched antiship missiles and advanced attack aircraft and bombers there within minutes of each country's mainland. Which would of course mean they will impose another major ADIZ extension on SEA states as well. They are not going to just accept the annexation and massive militarization of the Southern most South China Sea area and all of their territorial claims. If your territorial claim is gone you can forget about mineral or fishing rights, for when the area is consolidated, full of Chinese weapons Beijing can change the status-quo or any agreements at any time without notice.
So SEA will not do as you suggest, they will not see that as a tenable situation. They will see it as an affronting intolerable strategic development plus an intolerable external military threat, that's intruding on and into South East Asia itself, and on vital security and economic interests of many states.
Very good summation and analysis of the situation.
However, I don't want to see the USA sucked into a commitment to defend the "sovereign rights" of ASEAN countries. If these countries can't or won't commit to the defense of their own interests, then they should make the decision to appease China rather than bitch about it.
If ever the South China Sea becomes a war zone, world trade can circumvent it at the expense of 2-3 days of travel. So, it is not vital to our global interests. And, as I have made mention before, China depends much more on keeping the Straits of Malacca open to their vessels than we do. It will be many years, if ever, before the PLAN could force a passage through those Straits.
Fair enough, and I largely agree with your comments.
China is actually a far weaker and less capable force that many today imagine, it is basically hyped by the West and also by China.
The fact is though that China will become a more capable power that sees more and is linked up better with time but still with few other than fair-weather trading 'friends' and strategic allies, so no wider alliance structure to aid its influencing, the way Europeans in general and the Anglo-sphere in particular, make the most of. Even ethic Chinese majorities in Taiwan and Singapore are against the PRC Beijing authority, actions and legitimacy. [Which is extraordinary when you reflect on that in contrast to the Anglosphere's concerted strategic cooperation contexts, which has occasional spats, but few fundamental disagreements].
So they seem committed and serious enough with their principles and security interests, which generally agree with ours, and are requesting mutual security agreements and support.
My reading of the US is that it is playing the long-game in the whole of the Pacific basin, which is at least as important to it's future states as North Atlantic, and will insist on due-process as opposed to conflict to ensure everyone knows that mutual international due-process is the way to settle all acute territorial disputes. Less than that and the US will commit to a fight. The US has stuck with that since WWII and has recently recommitted to that as the core of its being an integral part of Pacific countries. So I expect the US will do that, not mater what China thinks, says or does.
In fact it's Canberra which is more reticent about a hardline within the Western Pacific but even that is by no means a universal view here, more sectional one. No one wants to get 'sucked in' to a air-sea conflict in Asia, but no one is interested in China getting away with annexing the SCS, via defacto usurping and military weight stack on, either.
China of course has entirely valid strategic and economic concerns in the SCS (most of them untenable to resolve to its liking in my view (hence their outlandish claims and aggressive stance to take all of it instead, but a battle in those islands which they have no hope of winning, will certainly make China's strategic concerns far worse thereafter. Consider:
China's position is far weaker than it seems to think here and that is clearly producing a serious strategic miscalculation and liability. If Beijing can not see how bad this will would be for its interests and influence they must be blind or just incompetents. If they consider their options right now they will decide to halt work, withdraw all ships and enter into genuine negotiations, in which they will certainly obtain a far better outcome than the present untenable path.
Other countries in the area #1 concern now is of the need to confront China, they will not fret about impaired trade flow through SEA or SCS. It's the principle of China annexing anything which it declares to be Chinese without regard to any other countries directly involved that is the vital interest at stake, and the need to reverse that and deter any more of that nonsense.
I think the most directly affected states have made the situation of their strong opposition to Chinese authoritarian declarations and actions in the SCS clear enough already, and unfortunately they will be making it much clearer still.
I think that the military significance of this base is being exaggerated.
The Straits of Malacca make the South China Sea strategically important. If you control the Straits, and if you have friendly relations with Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, you can sail to Japan and Korea avoiding the China Sea and the Straits of Formosa, but it will take two days longer to do so. If you don't control the Straits of Malacca, you can use the China Sea only if the US Navy lets you sail through the Straits without interference.
There are extensive mineral resources underneath the South China Sea. This base could be very useful as a center for exploration and extraction. In the long run, that may make the construction and maintenance of the base worth the trouble.
I doubt the surrounding countries remotely agree with the prospect of PRC island fortifying and power projection bases on their doorstep to back a claim of absolute Sovereignty over the entire South China Sea is not potentially the budding of a major conflict between SEA and China.
But you don't mention or ignore that this is first and foremost a major regional territorial dispute to begin with, that has been brewing for many decades, in which one side is now claiming everything, and clearly building at best military facilities that are duel-use (i.e. may also service a secondary resources extraction economic role).
Somehow you don't realize this makes the chances of serious conflict even higher, not lower.
But yes, China will try to spin it as a state resource extraction initiative, but I fail to see how that salves the situation in any way for the half dozen states in SEA directly involved. It is a major escalation of tensions and preparation for conflict that is occurring, and the opposite of resolution, the situation is becoming all the more intolerable. Not less.
If you were Malaysian you most certainly would not assert these island's significance are being "exaggerated", nor for at least ten other countries close by.
The west is not driving the dynamic here the actions of China and the concerns of the affected region are. Washington is being invited in by multiple countries in the area to be a counter-weight and arms-supplier as well as strategic backstop, that also has its own strategic interests in not having China do this, or to make it stick, or get away with it, or to derive any economic benefits from this approach.
Beijing can get way with dictating in the streets of Beijing, but in the South of the South China sea they are just a bulls-eye, if they want to be dictatorial about who owns what, and ignore all international negotiation processes short of war.
And Washington and the Pentagon clearly want to assist SEA to resist that.
While China clearly wants to keep escalating their absurd claims and insisting it has the right of might to do what it pleases, to assert boundaries in international waters close to other countries.
It is an unambiguous recipe for escalation into armed conflict. It's even occurred before in the area, for the very same reasons, several times in fact, and it will certainly occur again, only this time it will be much more confronting, protracted and uncompromising, leading to military removal.
If the Chinese claim is based on threatening to use military power to make their usurping of the entire South China Sea stick, then the converse is equally true. That military power can be exercised to make their ownership of the islands does not stick.
The shooting will begin, small, but it will escalate then tensions will lead to demands and hardline declarations.
Exaggerated or innocuous developments these islands most certainly are not.
With three cement plants, they are clearly creating a cement factory to make breeze blocks and intend to fly them off using big planes!
5 passengers set sail that day for a 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour
I would say, how outdated. Ask the Japanese, how they fared?'; however, the the U.S. no longer has the will to win, while the Chinese have more people.
SH
This is a strategic move by the China military.. Previously, China has to send in their fighter jets from Hainan Island 1600km away from disputed South China Sea but the distance required mid-air re-fueling in order to fight efficiently. Now, China has created the largest island in South China Sea less than 200km from Philippine and Vietnam and they are ready to deployed their air force in the man-made island to strike both countries if they continue to incur into South China Sea.
Supply lines? That's why the US has aircraft carriers. They can "stand off" and resupply.\\\\Plus they have nuke reactors to make fresh water.
The Chinese are numbers players. They also lack "Jet engine" and stratgic technologies.
I'm going to short aud/jpy Sunday. I'm going to short usd/jpy Sunday.
Not that I don't believe athiest have their point of view
Or really
We here
Lol
Tell it to the bots like we don't care
And ride the monsters of ur heart
Yea and try not to tell lies theWHOLE world
The United States has a strong interest in preservation of peace and security in the SouthChina Sea. We do not believe that large-scale land reclamation with the intent to militarize outposts...
I believe what Herr McCain was trying to say "The United States has a strong interest in preservation of the current status quo. We do not believe that any nation has a right to military outposts (except The United States of course).
There, fixed it for you.
Didn't type lies
Second I look back
SPCK
Ha, ha, ha ....
Buster!
IP fuck the way you did is child's play!
Friends of ZH, I'm talking to some fifteen or twenty people.
The message is not for the good people.
This text is for Troll who tried to nail me on the Web.
:-)
"This is a major strategic event,” Mr. Dutton said. “In order to have sea control, you need to have air control…”
Obama is a Tic-Tac-Toe strategist.
Perhaps next Ill get to see some aerial color satellite photos of all those Russian tanks invading Ukraine...
Recall for a moment that DigitalGlobe was the source of the grainy black and white photos used by the US State Department that "proved" that Russia had invaded...The same source as these color photos above.
Every person in the U.S. State Department needs to be tried and summarily executed for crimes against humanity.
So all fair not fair rated we all die factor upon lover patented and passion assassins
What would u really rate this past all that can't be completed but signs at work for hope for completion at most for more tickets as imperfections
No worries. Global Warming will flood it out in a decade or two.
*insert sarcasm*
The south china sea was claimed by KMT in early 20th century. Since KMT was supported by USA, plus back then all the countries in south-east China are all kinds of messes, the claim didn't have much trouble.
In the last a few decades, the countries surrounding south sea started to claim their own islands. Since the islands are pretty far away from China mainland so there's not much China can do. Few conflicts happened but burried. But now, with latest engenieering machines, China decided to build some islands manually. The point is pretty obvious and unless someone wants to use fire arms, nothing can stop this action.
=========
I would agree, China's action is bully regarding this specific case. But if everyone read enough international news like I did, which is not very much, the world is filled with those even these days.
USA is the biggest one among all bullies, this country doesn't make decisions based on justices or human rights like movies or newspapers claim. Every thing is pure interest and things will go violent if the result is not satisifying to USA.
I would agree, the world is running to WWIII, although I don't think my country should be blamed for. Because, as the leader of the world, with the most powerful military force, USA didn't make a good sample.
Our treatment of Japan and Germany .... after WWII .... defines decency and respect for their cultures .... imagine, better yet .... observe Muslim respect for POWs and conquered territories ! I invite China to help the Philippines and Thailand and Myanmar .... rid their Muslim menaces .... and join the "Good Fight" !
I'll bet this island .... cost less to build .... than one of our aircraft carriers ! May diffuse China's spurious claims to other rocks, reefs and debris !
This is gross propaganda; straight up "Agitprop."
Other countries built up their islands down there in order to make their shoddy claims more "permanent". Nothing was said when China protested. China just came to the realization that there is JACK FUCKING SHIT that anyone's gonna do about it, no one has the military or the balls to eject China from the islands, and building a great big fuckoff military base is a GREAT way to make the claim permanent.
China is digging a tomb for itself in the South China Sea, and setting a regional and global narrative that it will be trying to live down for the next 50 years. And do stop kidding yourself, there's in fact not a single military vessel or aircraft the PRC has which has a chance of surviving a concerted attack on PRC military forces on those islands. If you imagine SEA or the US is in the least bit of afraid of the PRC or likely to vacillate, Beijing is going to get a reality-check.
China has nukes, go ahead, have fun.
So does Pakistan, they got flown over and missile attacked for over ten years.
Your nuke threats scare no one.
paki nukes are only for show, they could *maybe* hit india. Indian nukes are also a complete and total joke. Chinese nukes are not to be shrugged off.
You are apparently completely given over to delusion and denial.
India's first test was a Pu implosion design in 1974, it worked the first time with a viable military yield, their delivery systems also work. Only a complete idiot would presume or assert Pakistan's or India's nukes and delivery systems won't work as designed. This is hardly new technology, nor even that difficult to master, maintain and perfect to an acceptable and deliverable level.
Spare me the suicidal chest-beating and hair pulling screams of, "no fair! we nuke you round-eye!!". Beijing is not going to do anything along those lines, no matter what it stupidly asserts within its propaganda.
Washington can decommission those atoll's facilities permanently, within a few hours of being ordered to do so, without even trying hard, and there's zip the PLA, PLAN or PLAAF could do about that, which has any prospect of being effective. Now or in future.
Get a grip.
The 50 Cent Party (Chinese: ??? w?máo d?ng) are Internet commentators (Chinese: ????? w?ngluò pínglùn yuán) hired by the government of the People's Republic of China (both local and central) or theCommunist Party to post comments favorable towards party policies in an attempt to shape and sway public opinion on various Internet message boards.[1][2] The commentators are said to be paid fifty cents of Renminbifor every post that either steers a discussion away from anti-party or sensitive content on domestic websites, bulletin board systems, and chatrooms,[3] or that advances the Communist party line.[4][5]
Well, the thing is that this is basically just a Chinese rumor that got started during online arguments. Evidence of it? Nadda.
However, there's the Pentagon's SMISC program which is 100% real and does the exact thing you are claiming China does.
Let's make this really simple. If the US decided to try and attack Chinese military targets, the US would end up down a few carriers. Anti-carrier ballistic missiles turn carriers into floating targets and little else.
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It will get real interesting when China builds a series of "lily pads" all around the East and West coasts of the Empire of Chaos. Tough to know that from here on out Merca was the former...the has been...the one time champeeeeeeen of global slaughter and power but now of course it is all over and the free lunch and foodstamp economy is getting flushed down the caked bowl of our ignominous hyped past.
As an avid diver, I see this concrete insult to the glory of ocean reefs and wonder what other than The State would destroy it just to park a bunch of non-productive and destructive hardware? I don't even understand the value of such an installation. All that expense, and all it would take would be a few guided missles, or one underwater detonation to generate a wave that would purge that entire facility. Madness.
Since reefs are a central component of promoting sea life, why doesn't every country build artificial reef systems to get the ball rolling?
They're "Evil" aren't they?
Then why aren't they builing their Bases to be shaped like Skulls?