Chinese control of South China Sea ‘short of war’ is complete

Great Power War ^ | 9/24/18 | USA Features

[SleeperCatcher]

In a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis in June, Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed that Bejing “cannot lose even one inch of the territory” in the South China Sea. That’s about as plain a warning as one gets: China will defend, militarily, it’s outsized claims in a body of water through which one-third of all global trade passes.

The U.S. would have little difficulty in taking out militarily significant targets on any of the islands in question. But that’s not really the point.

Through the construction of these artificial islands-turned-military bases, China acted brazenly but in a calculated way: When the decision was made to begin dredging sand and building artificial islands, Xi and the Chinese Communist Party calculated that no one in the region, including the United States, would directly challenge the construction.

[FLT-bird]

Do I get to choose which ones?

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

The trouble is, in a conventional war, both sides will be on a hair trigger ready to respond to an expected nuclear attack. They could be a blip on the screen away from launching a retaliatory nuclear strike on such conditions, it almost happened in peacetime on at least one occasion during the cold war.

[Zhang Fei]

[The trouble is, in a conventional war, both sides will be on a hair trigger ready to respond to an expected nuclear attack. They could be a blip on the screen away from launching a retaliatory nuclear strike on such conditions, it almost happened in peacetime on at least one occasion during the cold war.]

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They weren’t, really, in peacetime. There just weren’t a lot of resources devoted to early warning efforts. In wartime, you can bet that the resources would be upped big time. The usual point of warfare is territorial gain at a reasonable expense. Having one’s cities burned to the ground because of erroneous early warning systems is not a reasonable expense.

They’re not worried about killing us by the tens of millions. They’re worried about us killing them by the hundreds of millions in response. China’s population has been unusually concentrated in its cities because of the massive shift from agriculture, and a fairly-poor country’s lack of resources to spread infrastructure across vast geographic expanses the way it’s dispersed stateside. China is ideally-situated for nuclear extermination. I expect its leaders understand this, and will bend over backwards to avoid any suspicion that it is about to launch, and maintain first-rate early warning systems to detect foreign launches. It’s not for nothing that China has been launching satellites willy nilly. I don’t think it’s so they can beam Chinese propaganda around the world.

The aftermath of any nuclear conflict between peer major nuclear powers will involve tens of millions of dead at minimum. No amount of Chinese propaganda will allow Xi Jinping to get past this. Because at the end, you can append “racist, fascist, warmongering American decisionmakers touched off an imperialist war” but even these weasel words and others I’ve added, will make it hard to redeem this sentence: “Xi Jinping’s rule, which ended with his heroic sacrifice under tons of rubble at Zhongnanhai, the seat of Chinese power, coincided with a halving of China’s population, during his effort to reclaim what is rightfully China’s”.

[Does so]

Global Warming will swallow those islands. Threat will have to move to other venue. /

[CondoleezzaProtege]

There needs to be new leadership in South Korea and all over Asia. It’s NOT a good dynamic there right now. And our hand with North Korea is weakening because of it as a result.

Years of poor U.S. leadership let it get this way.

[MCF]

Ha! Wishful thinking!

[Jack Hammer]

The thieves are crowing that this theft is fait accompli.

[Williams]

True but our allies are nearby.

[Salvavida]

Indeed. That doesn’t stop the Chinese.

[DoughtyOne]

So we surrender right of free passage then?

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

[trebb]

But...they do seem to be doubling down on stupid with the tariff deals...they see their markets tumble and then do more of the same that caused it...they might still have the “We have a lot more disposable bodies” mindset....never can tell with dynastic malevolence.

[central_va]

Of all three forms of warfare, land, sea and air, a war a sea is LEAST likely to provoke the use of strategic nuclear weapons. Save for a few civilian contractors, war at sea is very clean in the sense that only the combatants are casualties.

[T-Bone Texan]

"...Then there was the miscued targeting of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.//"

What it indeed "miscued"?

I say Hmmmmm.

[T-Bone Texan]

Lots of folks thought we should’ve nuked China in 1949 or during the Korean War.

[bert]

The life in China is presently dependent on maritime trade. South China Sea set aside, the rest of the oceans must be traversed to have chinese containers delivered to the world.

Threats against sinking will induce foreign shippers to curtail service. Actual sinking of Chinese container vessels on any ocean where will be detrimental. If the Suez and Panama canals are closed, to China vessels there will be a costly problem

In the words of In Harm’s Way...... a gut bustin Navy war

[bert]

Trade is important

America must defend the seas

[central_va]

Threats against sinking will induce foreign shippers to curtail service. Actual sinking of Chinese container vessels on any ocean where will be detrimental.

Detrimental to who? To the Chinese yeah, to the American worker it would be a blessing.

I dream about Chinese container ships burning in the night.....

[bert]

I don’t doubt that but remember that you are a foolish isolationist that has effectively withdrawn from the world

[central_va]

isolationist that has effectively withdrawn from the world

You are the isolationist. Fighting back against unfair trade is not isolation-it is the opposite.

So are the other counties (China, EU et al )that use mercantilism to kill American industry isolationist LOL

[Zhang Fei]

[What it indeed “miscued”?
I say Hmmmmm.]

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There’s speculation they were actively helping the Serbs from that location. While they might have had it coming, going after an embassy is a pretty big deal, quite apart from current diplomatic convention. The killing of envoys used to trigger wars.