antiterror13
Brigadier
They don't need to like each other .....
China's SCS Strategy Thread
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
They don't need to like each other .....
plawolf
Lieutenant General
China's offer to not militaries the islands in the SCS was an offer, not a commitment.
That offer was predicated on the condition that the US and regional powers accept China's ownership and control of the islands and refrain from trying to destabilise the region and heighten tensions. Conditions, the US especially, has purposely refused to meet.
China might have grudgingly tolerated FON patrols from parties not claiming territory, but the American invitation to the Philippines to join their patrols crossed a flashing neon red line as far as China is concerned, which demanded a response. The Parcels deployment was a warning shot across the bow.
If those joint patrols take place, expect more than SAMs to start popping up in the Sparatly Islands.
American foreign policy is hilariously one dimensional and predictable in both startegy and tactics.
Stratgically speaking, some countries are untouchable and can do whatever the hell they want (Israel, Saudi Arabia), others get treated with a modicum of respect (EU, Japan and South Korea), some must be resolutlely opposed no matter what they do (Russia, Iran, China) and the rest are just not worth having a specific policy on.
In terms of startegy, against the 'oppose' group, the US pretty much cornered themselves into only being able to use threats, intimidation and force. Anything less is appeasement and defeat!
Had America had even a tiny bit of flexibility, they should have seized China's original offer to not militarise the islands with both hands and feet as well.
They should have pressed China to show their hand by politely and firmly asking China to clarify its option BEFORE making what would have been a thoughtless knee-jerk reaction, like mounting FON patrols.
They could have used the threat of FON to get China to respond. Once China spells out its position and offered to not militarise the islands, and offered to make them accessible to others, the US could effectively have forced China to commit to those offers.
That was realistically the best possible outcome the US could have expected to get form the situation. China was never going to roll back its new built islands. The best outcome would have been to ensure they did not become military bases from where China could dominate the SCS, or at last extract maximum political and diplomatic costs from China for doing so.
The best and only way to do that was through reasonable peaceful discourse. Not gunboat diplomacy.
All the US did in needlessly sending heavily armed warships and bombers provocatively close to the new islands was to look thuggish and unreasonable while presenting China with a gift wrapped pretext to arm those islands to the teeth as counters and defensive precautions to American intimidation, look reasonable for doing it, and there isn't a thing America can do about it without risk starting a full scale war.
I'm also inclined to think China mindscrewed the Obama administration by offering everything they could reasonably have expected to get right off the bat.
That made Obama think he could get a better deal and so badly overplayed his hand.
That offer was predicated on the condition that the US and regional powers accept China's ownership and control of the islands and refrain from trying to destabilise the region and heighten tensions. Conditions, the US especially, has purposely refused to meet.
China might have grudgingly tolerated FON patrols from parties not claiming territory, but the American invitation to the Philippines to join their patrols crossed a flashing neon red line as far as China is concerned, which demanded a response. The Parcels deployment was a warning shot across the bow.
If those joint patrols take place, expect more than SAMs to start popping up in the Sparatly Islands.
American foreign policy is hilariously one dimensional and predictable in both startegy and tactics.
Stratgically speaking, some countries are untouchable and can do whatever the hell they want (Israel, Saudi Arabia), others get treated with a modicum of respect (EU, Japan and South Korea), some must be resolutlely opposed no matter what they do (Russia, Iran, China) and the rest are just not worth having a specific policy on.
In terms of startegy, against the 'oppose' group, the US pretty much cornered themselves into only being able to use threats, intimidation and force. Anything less is appeasement and defeat!
Had America had even a tiny bit of flexibility, they should have seized China's original offer to not militarise the islands with both hands and feet as well.
They should have pressed China to show their hand by politely and firmly asking China to clarify its option BEFORE making what would have been a thoughtless knee-jerk reaction, like mounting FON patrols.
They could have used the threat of FON to get China to respond. Once China spells out its position and offered to not militarise the islands, and offered to make them accessible to others, the US could effectively have forced China to commit to those offers.
That was realistically the best possible outcome the US could have expected to get form the situation. China was never going to roll back its new built islands. The best outcome would have been to ensure they did not become military bases from where China could dominate the SCS, or at last extract maximum political and diplomatic costs from China for doing so.
The best and only way to do that was through reasonable peaceful discourse. Not gunboat diplomacy.
All the US did in needlessly sending heavily armed warships and bombers provocatively close to the new islands was to look thuggish and unreasonable while presenting China with a gift wrapped pretext to arm those islands to the teeth as counters and defensive precautions to American intimidation, look reasonable for doing it, and there isn't a thing America can do about it without risk starting a full scale war.
I'm also inclined to think China mindscrewed the Obama administration by offering everything they could reasonably have expected to get right off the bat.
That made Obama think he could get a better deal and so badly overplayed his hand.
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joshuatree
Captain
I never considered the note as the whole case, merely another key point for either side of the debate.
Brumby
Major
I am not suggesting the note as the whole case but if we are discussing about the note, isn't the contents central to the case? Have you seen the contents or know of it?
When questioned by the journalist, the whitehouse spokes person said don't care about how Chinese government think. Lowering the tension and assuring are for allies only.
If that's the case, why even bother to talk and discuss with Chinese government? lol
There's no need for Woody Island to permanently host fighters.
It's only 200km from the airbases in Hainan, so call it 10min at cruising speed for a jet fighter.
But it would make sense for Woody island to be able to refuel fighters if needed.
Absolutely agree.
But the bigger picture is a huge gap in China expertise at the senior levels of US government and policymakers, which is compounded by the ingrained attitude that the US is still THE sole hyperpower and can easily get whatever it wants.
That is clearly no longer the case, which means US decision-making is full of miscalculation.
For example, US administrations frequently lack anyone tasked with managing the China portfolio - which is a huge and complex matrix that spans the entire civilian and military policy spectrum.
Look at the debacle of opposing the Chinese-led AIIB, which the vast majority of US allies agreed should be a good thing for Asia - because it would embed China into a multi-national economic policy framework and could help lift hundreds of millions of people from poverty.
Yet US policy was effectively hijacked/derailed into a futile battle by members of the US national security council who were implacably opposed to expanding Chinese economic influence on an ideological/jealousy basis - despite the overall benefits to the world.
Or we could look back to 2001 in the run-up to the Hainan Island EP-3 spy plane incident. The US military suddenly decided to shift operations from Russia to China, which resulted in a huge military rampup including regular simulated attack runs. Yet there was literally no one in charge of China policy in the US, so we ended up with a mid-air collision and the subsequent crisis.
To be honest, I don't see it getting any better soon because the current crop of politicians and policymakers have already shown that they don't take China seriously at all, which is a huge mistake on their part. In comparison, nobody doubts that China takes the US very, very seriously.
That is a great example.
The US government doesn't care what China thinks.
Yet China is too big to be ignored, and has so many options to make its displeasure felt.
ASEAN will struggle to become anything other than a free trade/investment zone.
Look at the diversity in terms of wealth, race, religion, language in ASEAN - which is compounded by geographical separation. Then compare this against Europe, where the members states have way more similarities, yet Europe struggles to function as a coherent whole.
In the long-run, I think China has the capacity and the will have to be the provider for both economic and military security for ASEAN.