Meanwhile in Vietnam. . .

[Ponzio]

http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Nation&title=vietnam-builds-military-muscle-to-face-china&id=120452

Good article, a lot more detailed than the abridged Reuters article I read last week. Vietnam has also been pressing us behind the scenes to sign a non-aggression/mutual defense pact with them like we have with Japan. The only thing holding it up is Vietnam’s abysmal human rights record.

I’ve been keeping up with this issue for a while now, ever since China claimed that their territorial waters extends 200 miles into the South China Sea, back in the 90’s. Internationally, thru the UN, after WWII, everyone agreed to a 15 mile extension. This is a problem. The US Navy has quadrupled their presence in the South China Sea, along with the Australians and to a lesser extent the British, in the last 5 years, pulling out ships from the Mediterranean (bottlenecking Russia’s Southern Fleet) and the Middle East (mostly in the Persian Gulf to contain the Iranian Navy and the Suez Canal area of the Indian Ocean, to deter the Somali pirates and protect the shipping lanes). There have been incidents but the press is so fixated with ISIS that u only see brief blurbs off the AP wire. This is not a coincidence, 65% to 70% of our trade is with the Pacific. It’s only a matter of time before Japan/Philippines and indirectly South Korea, calls upon the USA to honor its military treaty obligations and come to their defense, if China/North Korea attacks them.

 

[Chu Gai]

I've read where I think it was the Philippines brought this matter to the attention of some sort of world/international court to rule on their particular maritime disputes with China. China says they won't be a party to any decisions handed down by them. I guess it comes down to potential undersea energy sources and fishing rights as well as extending their spheres of influence. Messy situation.

 

[Swerd]

When you said, "Vietnam has also been pressing us behind the scenes to sign a non-aggression/mutual defense pact with them like we have with Japan", I paused for a long moment.

"Never get into a land war in Asia" is an often repeated quote. I always believed it was attributed to Douglas MacArthur. I spent a few minutes googling it to confirm who said it and when. Yes, apparently MacArthur said this (maybe not in those exact words) in 1949. Most of the other references to this quote come from the Princess Bride. (I do question the wisdom of taking any advice from this highly controversial person, but in this case, I'll accept it. Of course, MacArthur himself ignored it in Korea.)

I'm all for confronting China's Pacific expansionism, but we should avoid any defense pact that might lead us into a land war in Asia.

 

[Ponzio]

I'm all for confronting China's Pacific expansionism, but we should avoid any defense pact that might lead us into a land war in Asia.

You’ll get no argument out of me on that point but our existing defense treaties with Japan/Philippines/South Korea must be honored, otherwise China will view that as an opening to divide and conquer. Obama may be dithering with the Middle East/Russia but he correctly has swung the pendulum in the right direction I believe. Emerging markets and the population growth in the East demands it, if we are to continue as a world power and a viable economy for our own burgeoning population growth (322.3 peeps vs. 186.5 mil in 1962). You can’t project power or conduct a war with China without staging areas and bases, like we currently do in those 3 countries, from Hawaii. Even though the Subic Bay Naval/Clark AF base(s) were returned to the Philippines in 1992, they changed their tune in 2012 when China started getting more aggressive. The US Seventh Fleet is back, along with the Marines and Air Force, at the request of the Philippine government. Even the expulsion fever in Okinawa has been dialed back with the Japanese, as of late.

It’s highly unlikely that the US would sign a defense pact with the Vietnamese anyway at this time unless we get unfettered access to their markets and the Vietnamese Communist Party shows no sign whatsoever of loosening their grip on power to institute democratic/economic reforms, so those two conditions right off the bat are unlikely to be met and makes the likelihood of a pact moot ... at this time. Politics and war make strange bedfellows.

The geopolitical similarities between modern day China and pre-WWII Japan are eerily the same. An expanding dynamic economy with a growing military combined with a nationalist government with a lack of access to natural resources (oil, minerals, etc.) and the USA in their way. Yikes!

 

[Ponzio]

Strike 2 against China. Even though the ruling is unenforceable, this just puts more pressure on Xi/China diplomatically to internationally bend to the decision if it's going to be treated like a respected world power. but how does he live up to the promise/propaganda of the last decade he's made to his own nationalists about China's hegemony over the South China Sea? combine that with the US Navy's increased presence in the disputed zone and ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/beijing-remains-angry-defiant-and-defensive-as-key-south-china-sea-tribunal-ruling-looms/2016/07/12/11100f48-4771-11e6-8dac-0c6e4accc5b1_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

 

[Swerd]

I saw that news too. Unfortunately the World Court ruling has no teeth.

I read this article in the BBC yesterday.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36574590

As an old hand at anti-submarine stuff, I found it explained a lot about possible Chinese motives in the South China Sea. Building those airbases on those reefs and islands never made much sense to me until I read that article. Presently, Chinese ballistic missile submarines operate from a base on Hainan Island. For their missiles to be within range of the US, they must be able to break out into the Pacific Ocean. Before the submarines achieve this, they must cross the South China Sea to reach the Pacific Ocean undetected. With the extended claims (dashed red line in the map), they can do this easier.

Edit: As early as the 1960s the US Navy (especially US submarines) had closely monitored Soviet submarines as soon as they left their bases in Murmansk and Petropavlovsk. This was an effective tactic and a closely kept secret for a long time. If the Chinese control the sea surface and air above the South China Sea, that approach cannot work.