China as Bully: Harassing the Other Nations Along the South China Sea

Excellent read from the LA Times'Shashank Bengali and Vo Kieu Bao UyenSunken boats. Stolen gear. Fishermen are prey as China conquers a strategic sea:

Unfazed by rising global criticism, China's navy, coast guard and paramilitary fleet has rammed fishing boats, harassed oil exploration vessels, held combat drills and shadowed U.S. naval patrols. The escalating show of force has overwhelmed smaller Southeast Asian states that also claim parts of the sea, one of the world's busiest fishing and trade corridors and a repository of untapped oil and natural gas.

Beijing's maritime expansionism illustrates not only the Chinese Communist Party's growing military might, but also its willingness to defy neighbors and international laws to fulfill President Xi Jinping's sweeping visions of power.

In its strategic quest to dominate the waterway separating the Asian mainland from the island of Borneo and the Philippine archipelago, China has built military outposts on disputed islands and reefs that, according to Xi, "are Chinese territory since ancient times ... left to us by our ancestors." The network of bases, harbors and landing strips deep in international waters has created a buffer for China's southern coastline, further encircled Taiwan and challenged the Pentagon's ability to move ships into Asia.

"It appears that China is rapidly developing the capabilities to exclude other navies from the South China Sea," Bill Hayton, an author and associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank, told a congressional commission in September.

Read the whole thing.

Anyone who asserts China is a benign power is dangerously wrong. Its leadership will push and push and push because they know that no major power wants to go to war to fight for Vietnamese fishermen or the other hundreds of harassing events that occur daily in the South China Sea.

Like the fable of boiling frogs by turning up the heat incrementally, China's way is to slowly rachet thing up until they have reached their goal, each click of the rachet designed to not be enought too provoke war, but eventully gaining China's dominance in the region.

See also Oriana Skylar Mastro's Beijing’s line on the South China Sea: “Nothing to see here” about China's bold face lying:

China’s strategy in responding to concerns about its intentions in the South China Sea is to claim that none of the activities, statements or behaviours that concern other countries are actually happening.

China claims it has not militarised the South China Sea, but that the United States “is the real pusher of militarisation” in these waters. Its leaders often argue that China is a peace-loving country only interested in defending itself. As the China’s General Wei Fenghe stated at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018, “China has never provoked a war or conflict, nor has it ever invaded another country or taken an inch of land from others. In the future, no matter how strong it becomes, China shall never threaten anyone.”

China has similarly brushed off concerns of other claimants, such as Vietnam, about its intensifying military exercises in the South China Sea and largely ignored Australia’s assertion at the United Nations that China’s claims have no legal backing.

So apparently it is all one big misunderstanding.

The rest of the piece destroys that "misunderstanding" allegation quite thoroughly.

China's Outlaw Government

I keep thinking that these words could be forced to work with that awful "Pina Colada Song"

"If you like brutal dictators
And getting sent off to camps
If you're not into freedom
If you like being controlled
If you like being
In the ruins of fate
Then the CCP is what you've looked for
And it's too late to escape"

Or, as someone else put it:

America’s relations with China should proceed from the recognition that the Chinese government is lawless. China flouts the rule of law, not occasionally or incidentally but characteristically, because the government understands itself as the source of law and unconstrained by it. The problem of China reminds us of the deeper laws that all nations must respect and that determine whether or not our positive laws are legally just.

The list of CCP outrages grows daily. Let me put a few down just to get started:

1. All its claims to anything based on "historical use" are complete and utter garbage, especially those involving the South China Sea;
2. Its claims that their "man-made islands" in the South China Sea extending China's territorial lists in completely bogus;
3. Its treatment of its own minorities, especially but not limited to the Uighurs, is unconscionable;
4. Its treatment of Hong Kong and those there brave to seek freedom is purely tyrannical;
5. Its bullying concerning the ships, fishing fleets, and territories of the other nations abutting the South China Sea, including the use of its para-maritime forces, military grade "coast guard," and other assets borders on warring on those neighbors and often includes intrusion for unlawful purposes into the internationally recognized sovereign waters of those states;
6. Its persistent efforts to corrupt the governments of other nations through bribery, threats, and outright infiltration of research facilities to steal research;
7. China's government lies about everything all the time and then punishes those who would tell the truth;
8. Its Orwellian "social credit system" is an offense to freedom

More to follow and links will be provided.

Laugh of the Day: Beijing pledges ‘long term peace’ in South China Sea

From the Chinese Alibaba owned South China Sea Morning Post come this howlerBeijing pledges ‘long term peace’ in South China Sea where its Asean neighbours also stake claims:

China is hopeful for “new progress” to be made in ongoing talks with the Asean bloc for a code of conduct governing the disputed South China Sea, Premier Li Keqiang said at a summit on Sunday, as other regional leaders called for countries to exercise restraint over the row.
Li’s comments at the twice-yearly Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting comes amid flaring tensions between Vietnam and Beijing over the dispute triggered by a Chinese oil survey vessel that remained within waters claimed by the Southeast Asian country for more than three months.
“We stand ready to work with Asean countries building on the existing foundation and basis to strive for new progress in the [code of conduct], according to the three-year time frame, so as to maintain and uphold long term peace in the South China Sea,” Li said at the start of a plenary session with the 10 Asean leaders.

This bit of double talk - after all, which country is the one stirring up tension with its neighbors with excessive claims to rights that violate the other countries territorial and exclusive economic zones (EEZs) - was reported by the SCMP with the accompanying map:

You might notice that China's famous "9 dash line" encroaches on the sovereign waters of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and judging by the SCMP map, the Japanese Senkaku Islands. You might also note that the SCMP map leaves off the EEZs of the Philippines and Malaysia and Japan. For those, we need another map, this one from the Voice of America :

Or perhaps this one from the American Center for Democracy:

Recall that the claims of all parties, are in part, based on assertions of ownership of various islands or rocks in the SCS. China also bases its claims on a theory of historical usage. China claims were rejected by an international tribunal. As with so much else that is modern, China disavows that ruling:

China said it did not recognize the ruling, which it described as "null and void." The case was brought by the Philippines over China’s vast territorial claims and island-building in the region.

The ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands, is the first to address competing claims and interests among a half-dozen countries fronting the South China Sea.

The panel said any historic rights to resources that China may have had were invalid if they are incompatible with exclusive economic zones established under a United Nations treaty.

The tribunal also ruled that China caused “irreparable harm” to the marine environment, “unlawfully” interfered with fishermen from the Philippines, and engaged in a massive land-reclamation and island-building campaign that is “incompatible” with international obligations.

In fact, Mr. Li has been pretty belligerent:

China is committed to peace but cannot give up “even one inch” of territory that the country’s ancestors left behind, Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday during his first visit to Beijing.

Xi’s remarks underscored deep-rooted areas of tension in Sino-U.S. ties, particularly over what the Pentagon views as China’s militarization of the South China Sea, a vital transit route for world trade.

"Long term peace" in Chinese terms means acceding to all its demands.