USN to challenge S. China Sea Islands

[A7Dave]

The same goes for the press, and even some DOD spokesmen, who reported the LASSEN was conducting 'innocent passage." That implies that the U.S. recognizes the territorial sovereignty of these features.

TINS. That burned me, too. They are doing what they do everywhere - they cut in line, steal economic information, copy everything, no matter how small (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/01/nyregion/chinese-firm-pleads-guilty-in-labor-case.html), and then when you call them on it, they pretend that they don't know what you're talking about.

Them: Islands? What islands? Oh, those islands? We've been here for thousands of years - Us: No, you just made them out of sand you dredged up and dumped there and you built a huge airport - Them: What islands?

Rinse, repeat. And they keep building. For them a "win-win solution" means China wins twice. They are building while SE Asia protests ineffectually and we send a single DDG to assert freedom of navigation:

http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/us-n...hin-12-nautical-miles-of-subi-mischief-reefs/

Kudos to you Surface Warriors. You're earning your sea pay.

 

[Flash]

Rinse, repeat. And they keep building. For them a "win-win solution" means China wins twice. They are building while SE Asia protests ineffectually and we send a single DDG to assert freedom of navigation:

http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/us-n...hin-12-nautical-miles-of-subi-mischief-reefs/

There isn't much we can do to prevent them from keep building unless we resort to force other than more FON ops. It wasn't just 'innocent passage' but I agree we need to exercise it more in that area.

China can create a narrative for what they are doing but it is easy to pierce it. I think it is ironic that the 'weakest' of the claimants, the Philippines, is the only one that has pushed against that narrative in the international arena with their UNCLOS case. Here is to hoping it goes their way.

 

[Hopeful Hoya]

China can create a narrative for what they are doing but it is easy to pierce it. I think it is ironic that the 'weakest' of the claimants, the Philippines, is the only one that has pushed against that narrative in the international arena with their UNCLOS case. Here is to hoping it goes their way.

If the UNCLOS rules against China, China will respect that ruling about as much as the US would if it was indicted in the Hague for War Crimes from the bombing of the MSF hospital in Afghanistan.

 

[Flash]

If the UNCLOS rules against China, China will respect that ruling about as much as the US would if it was indicted in the Hague for War Crimes from the bombing of the MSF hospital in Afghanistan.

No, but it changes the international narrative that China is trying to create around the South China Sea and their 'ownership' of it, and it would also give something the other countries in the region to fall back on when dealing with the issue. Up until now China has used the lack of definitive decisions on the region to their advantage and undercuts any façade of legitimacy. China also cared enough to object to it, unofficially.

 

[Hopeful Hoya]

Yeah it would definitely give the other claimants (and the US) a better leg to stand on, but short of landing a battalion of AAVs and raising the stars and stripes I don't really see how FON alter the status quo for the islands (and what China plans to do with them).

 

[Flash]

Yeah it would definitely give the other claimants (and the US) a better leg to stand on, but short of landing a battalion of AAVs and raising the stars and stripes I don't really see how FON alter the status quo for the islands (and what China plans to do with them).

The status quo, that the 'islands' are not really that and thus with no territorial claim associated with them, is just what want to maintain. That is the entire premise behind FON ops.

 

[Hopeful Hoya]

The status quo, that the 'islands' are not really that and thus with no territorial claim associated with them, is just what want to maintain. That is the entire premise behind FON ops.

I thought the greater problem behind these "islands" though was the potential for China to forward-deploy aircraft and other area-denial weaponry there to create exclusion zones in the Sea? Sure the islands themselves don't really matter strategically if everyone ignores the exclusion claims that China is making but what happens when they start supporting those claims through force?

 

[Flash]

I thought the greater problem behind these "islands" though was the potential for China to forward-deploy aircraft and other area-denial weaponry there to create exclusion zones in the Sea? Sure the islands themselves don't really matter strategically if everyone ignores the exclusion claims that China is making but what happens when they start supporting those claims through force?

Then they risk war with anyone involved in the region, including us (through our defense treaty with the PI).

 

[hscs]

the islands (and what China plans to do with them).

Ummm, this

http://www.eia.gov/beta/international/regions-topics.cfm?RegionTopicID=SCS

I believe another country called the area the Southern Resource Area during a past period of unpleasantness.

 

[azguy]

Yeah it would definitely give the other claimants (and the US) a better leg to stand on, but short of landing a battalion of AAVs and raising the stars and stripes I don't really see how FON alter the status quo for the islands (and what China plans to do with them).

With my sea lawyer hat on: Maritime Law actually draws heavily on precedence and norms. When China claims territorial/sovereign control of a rock and the surrounding 450 square nautical miles of water, we can put up a pretty decent legal challenge by simply sending the a DDG or P-8 on a FON through those international waters/airspace.

 

[Hopeful Hoya]

I guess my question is this: sure the USN demonstrated that it can sail in these waters, and it's doubtful that in the future the Chinese will do anything other than their standard media pronouncements and shadowing of ships. But what's to stop the Chinese from continuing to build these bases, and potentially drill for the resources in the sea? Short of the US openly interfering in the construction, there's noting anyone can do to stop it.

Thus, even though the area may be navigable per se, China is in effect left with several dozen bases on which it can base aircraft, radars, SAMs, etc. to potentially defend drilling platforms in the Sea hundreds of miles from it's shorelines, and there's really nothing anyone can do without risking a much larger conflict.

 

[azguy]

It's a valid point- they can continue to build unimpeded. The alternative, on our end, would be to go to war over a few runways - that's bad math...

In terms of what I think you're really getting at - what threat the militarization of those features actually pose to us in 3, 5, 10 years, whether we need to counter it, how we counter it; these are all great questions, just not an appropriate discussion to be had here. Just keep in mind that anyone who tells you that those airfields either pose an existential threat to us, or are nothing to worry about, is probably blowing smoke.

 

[DesertRooster]

TINS. That burned me, too. They are doing what they do everywhere - they cut in line, steal economic information, copy everything, no matter how small (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/01/nyregion/chinese-firm-pleads-guilty-in-labor-case.html), and then when you call them on it, they pretend that they don't know what you're talking about.

Them: Islands? What islands? Oh, those islands? We've been here for thousands of years - Us: No, you just made them out of sand you dredged up and dumped there and you built a huge airport - Them: What islands?

Rinse, repeat. And they keep building. For them a "win-win solution" means China wins twice. They are building while SE Asia protests ineffectually and we send a single DDG to assert freedom of navigation:

http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/us-n...hin-12-nautical-miles-of-subi-mischief-reefs/

Kudos to you Surface Warriors. You're earning your sea pay.

They did the same thing for Hacking the Department of Defense. They will also say that it wasn't them and was a lone group with no connection to the government.

 

[ea6bflyr]

Chinese: "Go away quickly."

 

[Gatordev]

Chinese: "Go away quickly."

Two things:

1. How are you in the middle of the freakin' Pacific and someone STILL has their beacon going off?

2. Who is the guy that "meows?" Because that guy is everywhere. He's like a Guard institution.