Posted on 06/02/2012 1:51:33 PM PDT by IbJensen
Since mid April Chinese naval vessels have been circling a pile of rocks situated 124 miles off the coast of the Philippines that barely qualifies as an “island”.
The rocks are called the Scarborough Shoal and save for there position, and rumors of oil and gas under them, they have no value to anyone. Nevertheless it is precisely because they are so far from their own shore that the Chinese are trying to pressure the Filipinos into relinquishing their long held claim (since 1734) to Panatag as they call them.
Moreover since the Scarborough Shoal at just 124 miles off the Philippines it is well within the island nation’s 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) recognized by international law as Filipino “fishing territory.”
China is slowly but surely attempting to increase her hold on the entire South China Sea and in doing so she is pushing asides the overlapping claims to the fishing rights of Malaysia, Brunei Vietnam Taiwan, and the Philippines. Because they are our allies the involvement of these last two has the potential to bring us into this dispute and a no win result.
True to its consistent refusal to abide by laws it doesn’t like, the Chinese government has sanctioned incursions into Scarborough waters that involve not only fishing, but firing at Philippine boats and removing coral from a reef included in the Panatag.
China’s claim to all of the South China Sea grows out of necessities the Communist country did not anticipate when it began to modernize.
This move is rooted in a much bigger story concerning the Chinese and how they are dealing with some unexpected consequences attending their rapid expansion as a manufacturing center in Asia.
After modernizing their farming industry the Chinese saw massive population shifts to their already over crowded cites where food can’t be grown but must be brought in. The farms can’t keep up with the demand so the seas are being increasingly relied upon to feed China’s city dwellers. This has led to over fishing the waters just off China’s coast and fishing boats being forced to work further and further away until they end up in the Scarborough Shoals claimed by the Philippines.
Barack Obama and his media lackeys can ignore this crisis but that doesn’t mean it poses no threat to world peace. In the 1930’s another Asian nation tried to solve her rapid expansion problems and that ended in World War II.
To be an enemy is a delight!
The undocumented Tyrant, by Pelosi’s perjury,
will do WHATEVER hurts Americans the most.
SSDD.
Unlikely.
A great deal of food in our grocery stores is imported from China, which would not seem to be the case if their farms couldn't feed their own people.
He’ll be shouting out numbers as a warning.......
“Fore!”
China is pushing its claims to as much territory as it can now, while we have a spineless wimp in the White House, because they suspect that he will be replaced with a much tougher person in January.
They figure this one will be easy. The Philippines does not have the naval forces to resist Chinese incursions and they know Obama will do absolutely nothing except squawk a bit.
“As China tries to strong arm our Filipino allies what will Barack Obama do?”
Ahhh...
NOTHING.
DUH!!!
The Chinese import about 20% of their grain.
China could probably feed itself but it would require the middle class to eat meat at 1970’s levels not current levels.
The Filipinos are US Allies?
Maybe the Filipinos should not have kicked the US Navy out of Subic Bay. The Chi-Coms would not feel so confident.
He’ll be taking vacations, getting some munchies, playing golf and other, uh, ball games.
Did the Filipinos kick us out of Subic Bay, or did we abandon it after a volcanic (Mt. Pinatubo?) eruption?
The Gangster Thugs Of China are emboldened By The Marxist whimp in the Whitehouse....
China is and has been for quite a while...a bunch of Criminal Lying Thieves.
what will he do?
Apparently, he’s already doing it. Relaxing in his Chicago home. Next, golf.
Let's see. Sell their food to a Chinese making $2/day for $.25 or sell it to Americans for $5 for the same cost to them to produce? C'mon, you've got to be joshing, right?
This could all be about the oil.
Japan wanted Indonesian oil back in the ‘30’s.
The food issue is nonsense. The Chi Coms don’t care if their people die. The Oligarchs need the oil to make mo’ mu-neee.
What will Obama do? ZIP
What can he do? China owns us—we get mean, they cancel our loans and we sink. We are owned.
Obama is right now engaged in a series of tense diplomatic negotiations designed to diffuse tensions and...
offer any help that he can to the Chinese.
Not exactly. The Filipinos kept raising the rent on our Subic Bay and Clark AFB leases. The U.S. balked at the extortion. Then, in an act of colossal stupidity, their Senate voted to kick the Americans out and not renew the leases.
During negotiations, Mt. Pinatubo blew its top and buried Clark AFB under 15 feet of volcanic ash. When the U.S. got access to the site, they found that the locals had stripped the base of anything useful. It would have been astronomical to rebuild Clark AFB, and everything became moot with the Filipino Senate's vote. This vote cost 80,000 Filipinos very well paying jobs working for the U.S. government, but it was too late. The U.S. packed up and moved to Singapore.
What will Zero do???
He will do whatever his handlers order him to do.
They’d rathter sell to us than feed thier people.
They’d rathter sell to us than feed thier people.
Philippines Orders U.S. to Leave Strategic Navy Base at Subic Bay
Published: December 28, 1991
The Philippines told the United States today that it must withdraw from the Subic Bay naval base by the end of 1992, ending a vast American military presence that began with the capture of the islands from Spain in 1898.
The decision, which resulted from an impasse in negotiations, follows a year of intense talks between the countries on the fate of American bases in the Philippines. The announcement also comes just three days before President Bush begins a 12-day Asian tour.
The shutdown of the sprawling Subic Bay base, together with the closing of Clark Air Base after a volcanic eruption this year, amounts to the biggest reduction to date in the United States military presence in the western Pacific. The 60,000-acre Subic base is the Navy’s principal supply and ship-repair installation in the region. U.S. to Look for New Sites
Although it is theoretically possible that a new agreement could be hammered out, Administration officials in Washington said that they considered this unlikely, and that they would accelerate the pullout and the search for alternative sites in the Pacific.
There is nothing about the volucanic eruption that permanently damaged the harbor.
Thanks IbJensen.
Maybe those Philipinos should not have died while trying to help our soldiers being force marched to death either, on the death march of Bataan. And the Japanese shot many of them when they tried to bring food and water to our soldiers...
We have very close ties with the Philippine people we still are allies militarily. They and we are fighting Jihadists in the Philippines who are trying to take over the country. Most of this fighting is done in secret. But we still have a presence there...
The US has done far more for the Philipines and Filipinos than the other way around.
Including giving them military helicopters and intelligence fighting their Muslim insurgents/terrorist.
Kicking the US out of Subic Bay was not only a slap in the face to the US but strategically stupid for them.
And any people that risks their lives and died trying to help our soldiers while our soldiers were being tortured and killed by the Japanese is worthy of our respect and should not be forgotten. We had been asked to leave by a left leaning government in the 1990's and political climates change.
And lets not forget that the U.S. supported Marcos who abused his own people and milked that country of money during his rule. Which precipitated a backlash in the 90's.
We cannot ever support dictators, in the long term we will suffer some way for it.
Sorry you are so grossly misinformed.
American blood and treasure have been spent over and over again to make the Philipnes a better place.
When Filipinos complain about American Imerialism they forget what real Spanish and Japanese Imperialism looks like.
Never claimed we are fighting Jihadist by ourselves.
You are living in a Fantasy land if you think the US can get by on a policy of never co-operating with dictators.
Without US giving Marcos the final push “People Power” would have never worked.
Without US support for Marcos a far worse Marxist dictator would have ruled there for many years.
I believe the chief source of the poisoning are the damned farm-raised Chinese talapia. They’re raised in cages along rivers polluted by human waste that drop down from stilted shacks with a hole in the floor.
Watch carefully where seafoods comes from. If it’s from Asia, shop on. Canada, USA and Iceland are okay.
Stupid Americans look for the central socialist government to look out for them, but this evil regime is stocked with worthless bureaucrats who couldn’t care less about citizens.
As I stated in #29, which addressed the fish mess, the same thing applies to what you feed your pets. Don’t feed them garbage from China that even the Chinese won’t eat. Don’t buy Chinese food or it will appear that you’re asking for it!
The Federal government colludes with transnational corporations to hide the source of the erzatz food and goods from China.
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