CNN February 2015: Report: China building new islands in disputed waters
Posted on 05/21/2015 8:27:27 PM PDT by iowamark
The U.S. is considering deploying aircraft and ships to contest Chinese claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Options are on the table to fly surveillance aircraft and sail Navy ships nearby in a move that puts the U.S. directly into a contentious territorial contest in East Asia, in which, until now, the U.S. has avoided overtly taking sides.
The South China Sea is the subject of numerous rival -- often messy -- territorial claims, with China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam disputing sovereignty of several island chains and nearby waters.
China on Wednesday cautioned the U.S. against taking any actions that might be considered provocative, according to a report from the state-run Xinhua news service.
While Beijing supports freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, the U.S. must be careful in how it uses that right, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in the report.
"Freedom of navigation does not give one country's military aircraft and ships free access to another country's territorial waters and airspace," Hua is quoted as saying in the Xinhua report...
Tensions over the Spratlys have increased in recent months as China has built facilities on five reclaimed-land sites in the islands, including a 10,000-foot (3,050-meter) airstrip.
James Hardy, editor of Jane's Asia Pacific, told CNN in February that China was executing "a methodical, well-planned campaign to create a chain of air and sea capable fortresses across the center of the Spratly Islands chain."
The disputed areas in the islands include fertile fishing grounds and potentially rich reserves of undersea natural resources.
A report released last week by the International Crisis Group said that clashes among the claimants were "becoming more heated and the lulls between period of tension are growing shorter."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
CNN February 2015: Report: China building new islands in disputed waters
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Will our fearless CIC be drawing a red line in the sand?
The Chinese are claiming as their territorial waters 1.4m sq miles of the Western Pacific. Those waters are 5x the size of Texas’s land area.
Playing Obama for all it is worth....
Yassa, Boss! We wuz jes’ leavin’...
That chickens!!t president of ours didn’t back the Philippines when the Chicoms first did this, and now he has left it so that he pretty much has to go to the UN to beg for action, militarily confront the Chicoms, or just concede that the Chicoms are smarter than he is.
All bad choices. Just another in the latest string of appeasement and backing the wrong side.
In this case, I don't think he's made a mistake. It's not unique to countries in the region, but many of our "allies" have this "don't rock the boat" mentality. If Obama had jumped in earlier, they might have accused him of harming their relations with China. Now that China has repeatedly thrown its weight around, it's clear to all of the region's countries that China, not the US, is the country that is being provocative in its actions. A clear pattern of Chinese misbehavior also makes it easier, from a public opinion standpoint, for the region's governments to provide support for US forces (typically logistical, in the form of pre-positioning ammo and equipment, as well as other useful things they can do in the background). Many are suspicious of the US's role as an honest broker/offshore balancer vis-a-vis China. They figure there's got to be a catch - nobody provides free protection.
Chinese territorial water go all the way to PI and Brunei! Boy they sure think a lot of themselves!
While Beijing supports freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, the U.S. must be careful in how it uses that right, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in the report.
Jeff could this get ugly?
While Beijing supports freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, the U.S. must be careful in how it uses that right, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in the report.
Funny how that same meme seems to be applied to
freedom of speech too. Coincidence? I think not.
/bingo
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