China's SCS Strategy Thread

[navip635]

Some analysts believe that trump2 and team maga geopolitical demarche in Ukraine and EU as a whole heralds disengagement there to shift its entire focus to confront China.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

Is it just me, or does it look like the US has all but given up on challenging China in the SCS?

SCSPI's annual report should come out this month

 

[plawolf]

Is it just me, or does it look like the US has all but given up on challenging China in the SCS?

The U.S. lost all credible ability to challenge China militarily in the SCS the moment China’s SCS islands were completed. It just took the US this long to do the maths and accept reality.

The whole American play with the SCS was to make it a choke point to strangle Chinese maritime shipping lanes to the rest of the world without creating an impossible IFF logistical burden on the USN, since that’s the only place on earth where you could potentially isolate civilian shipping to/from China from the rest of the world’s by mere geopolitical location (without needing to get suicidally close to the Chinese coast). Essentially they can reroute shipping to friendly and neutral countries around the outside of the Philippines and make the SCS a free fire zone and not have to really worry about IFF against civilian transports.

But the fundamental prerequisite of making that plan work was to have military dominance in the SCS. Which the USN lost once the PLAN had its SCS island bases as lynchpins to complement its growing naval fleets, since those bases gives China dominance in surveillance, offensive and defensive combat capabilities and above all else, unparalleled attritional dominance. Even if the USN can hit those islands with a hundred missiles before taking one missile hit in return (which they cannot come anywhere close to), the entire USN will be sunk and those islands will still be operational so long as the PLAN can keep them supplied.

All of the nonsense with the Philippines is mostly a combination of institutional inertia and scoring cheap political points, with some spiteful poison pilling to boot. But there is no serious military investment because the amount of investment needed to build up the Philippines to a level where they would become an actual asset would be beyond what America can afford. And even then no amount of investment can change the geographical reality of the Philippines being too far away from China to be meaningfully useful as a forward operating base.

 

[GulfLander]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1895797498142409097

This was an interesting thread. Even though Vietnam is still playing footsies with China in the SCS.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1849369553975042151

In retrospect, letting Vietnam reunite was not the most optimal choice. The divided Korea model would have benefited China more in the long run.

Whats the goal or purpose of the VN reclaimed island(s)?

 

[coolgod]

Whats the goal or purpose of the VN reclaimed island(s)?

Not sure, to ally with the US to contain China?