I really don’t see why we should go to war over some islands with nothing worthwhile on them in the South China Sea, let alone a nuclear war. Sounds pretty stupid to me.
“I really don’t see why we should go to war over some islands with nothing worthwhile on them in the South China Sea, let alone a nuclear war.”
I never said we should.
There’s a LOT worthwhile about them, that doesn’t have to be on them. Every bit of land adjacent to water includes territorial waters, depending on what country is the internationally recognized owner of the bit of land. And beyond territorial waters, are economic exclusion zones. It’s a vast area. Once a country has a toehold on such a bit, or makes a submerged reef into one by building on it or dumping tons of rock on it, it can claim all these other territories in all directions around it. The problem that’s raised now is that no longer can the true owner, say, the Philippines, or Vietnam, expect to be recognized as such when China has enough power and money to buy the international recognition to make it “official.”