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| Vintage Chinese poster – being revisited in the current era. |
If you live in Asia (and can’t move), and are not mainland Chinese, you are worried.
Witness the revolution in Japan which has seen it switch from purely defensive military capacities to a build up for offensive activities. The Philippines are too poor to do much but complain but have invited the US (and their money) back to the islands after kicking us off.
The People’s Republic of China claims most of the South China Sea as its own territorial waters. In the Spratly Islands, it occupies seven islands, six of which are shown on the map. The most important is Fiery Cross Reef which the Chinese have built into an air base. Chinese engineers are also building an airstrip on Subi Reef, but it is less advanced than that on Fiery Cross Reef.
China-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): On 5 August,Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China had halted land reclamation in the South China Sea. When asked by a reporter whether China would temporarily halt reclamation work in the strategic waterway, he replied: “China has already stopped. You just take an ‘aeroplane’ to take a look.”
He called on countries in the region to speed up talks on how claimant states should conduct themselves in the disputed waters. Xinhua reported on 6 August that the Foreign Ministers agreed to speed up consultations for developing a Code of Conduct for handling issues in the South China Sea.
The code of conduct idea is China’s proposal for defining how the ASEAN countries should conduct themselves in waters that China claims as territorial waters. Thus Xinhua’s positive spin might not be entirely accurate.
The spokesman for the Philippine Foreign Ministry acknowledged that China stopped dredging in the South China Sea, but said, “At the same time, China announced they are moving on to Phase 2, which is construction of facilities on the reclaimed features. The Philippines views these activities as destabilizing.”
The Chinese have no intention of compromising or negotiating their assertion of sovereignty in the South China Sea. Work continues to complete the construction of airfields and other military facilities on the newly built islands. The Chinese government views negotiations as establishing the terms by which China will permit other states to operate in “Chinese waters”.
An unprecedented Chinese naval building program and expanded capacity to wage war on the high seas is intended to put muscle behind all of their assertions. So long as the US accepts cut-rate goods from China without demanding fair trade going the other way (China is highly protectionist), we are enablers.
Trusting China is like trusting Iranian Mullahs. One must be a Harvard educated lawyer of mixed parentage and have been raised in Hawaii and Indonesia
…and Kenya.
Having a transexual nanny that dresses you up like a girl and puts make-up on you must help… dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2110437/Revealed-Barack-Obamas-gay-transgender-prostitute-nanny-cracked-trying-mothers-lipstick.html
Lenin once said: The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them. Today he would say (if he were Chinese): The Capitalists will buy from us the rope with which we will hang them.
And we keep buying rope… however there is another way to look at it. If you owe somebody $20, you're a debtor. If you owe them $10 trillion, you have a partner. Imagine if we defaulted on China?
When they came to collect, they would learn the wisdom of Admiral Yamamoto: "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass."
The USA has a long an successful history of stiffing foreign investors but never on such a grand scale. Is this a great country, or what?
(Latest swindle: Toxic sub-prime mortgages)
And they are installing artillery on those islands too…
Thanks for reminding me about the nanny. The Chinese are surely quaking at the martial aspect of our Commander in Chief. Or not.
AAA, and missiles but I doubt that they're going to do much with conventional coastal defense artillery. They count on out-matching any naval force locally, supported by aircraft from China and naval anti-shipping ballistic missiles.
I don't know about the Chinese, but Barack scares me.
President Trump will nip those trade shenanigans with China in the bud. He'll bring their economy to a screeching halt if they call his "bluff." I don't think the guy bluffs.
Fredd, if DT wasn't good at the bluff, he wouldn't still be in business…
Any good bluff (walk softly and carry a big stick) requires the capacity to destroy and the willingness to employ those active measures.
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