China's SCS Strategy Thread
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
Xi Dada should wear a t-shirt that says "I survived Obama's Pivot" when he meets Trump in Florida.
vesicles
Colonel
Well, the term "pivot to Asia" is out for sure. But does this mean the US will actually give up Asia and hand it over to China? I don't think so. Asia is too important to the US. So wait for the next wave...
Blackstone
Brigadier
US has way too much interests in Asia to let it go, so I fully expect Trump to engage Asia in a big way. His "fair trade" is not a bad idea, if he makes it reasonable and craft effective policies to support them. Facts are US can't sustain $600-700b annual trade deficits and something had to be done to address the worst parts of trade deficits. Problem with Trump and his cronies is they threw the baby out with the bath water.
antiterror13
Brigadier
agreed. Trump simply talks too much, lack of action .... and he does have a very very loose tongue and fingers
The pivot is over, SCS will be China's Hawaii within 20 years.
Obama had the right ideas, use both military and economic means to counter China, the economic means is TPP, using TPP to open up US market to China's rival and encourage them to trade among themselves rather than all trading with China.
Trump killed TPP, cutting budget to foreign aids, cutting budgets to State department, cutting budget to everything but military..... its over. We are not living in the Spring and Autumn period anymore, military is NOT and cannot be used as the only dominate method for nation to interact with each other today
Here is my prediction how it will go down for the next 10-15 years.
US will never publicly acknowledge giving up SCS, but it will not fully commit to counter China either, so all that will be happening is China keep pushing US back more and more, but they will never directly engage US military. This will only result in making US looks really week in front of all Asean nations.
While at same time, China will finalize its own trade agreement, it will use massive economy means to invest in all Asean nations, both in its friends and its rivals, but depends on the situation, it will play favors... so basically carrot and bigger carrot approach.
If that does not work, China will play the divide and conquer strategy, for example, use Cambodia to counter Vietnam, use Malaysia to counter Singapore or use Singapore to counter Malaysia, use Muslim insurgents counter Philippines etc...
Eventually all those nations above will get in line one way or the other, I also do expect China to compromise as well, for example joint resource extraction, joint control in some areas.
Eventually beyond 2030, I'm having a hard time seeing US military presence in SCS, not that China will force it to go away, but rather the Asean nations will do that job for China.
Obama had the right ideas, use both military and economic means to counter China, the economic means is TPP, using TPP to open up US market to China's rival and encourage them to trade among themselves rather than all trading with China.
Trump killed TPP, cutting budget to foreign aids, cutting budgets to State department, cutting budget to everything but military..... its over. We are not living in the Spring and Autumn period anymore, military is NOT and cannot be used as the only dominate method for nation to interact with each other today
Here is my prediction how it will go down for the next 10-15 years.
US will never publicly acknowledge giving up SCS, but it will not fully commit to counter China either, so all that will be happening is China keep pushing US back more and more, but they will never directly engage US military. This will only result in making US looks really week in front of all Asean nations.
While at same time, China will finalize its own trade agreement, it will use massive economy means to invest in all Asean nations, both in its friends and its rivals, but depends on the situation, it will play favors... so basically carrot and bigger carrot approach.
If that does not work, China will play the divide and conquer strategy, for example, use Cambodia to counter Vietnam, use Malaysia to counter Singapore or use Singapore to counter Malaysia, use Muslim insurgents counter Philippines etc...
Eventually all those nations above will get in line one way or the other, I also do expect China to compromise as well, for example joint resource extraction, joint control in some areas.
Eventually beyond 2030, I'm having a hard time seeing US military presence in SCS, not that China will force it to go away, but rather the Asean nations will do that job for China.
Jura The idiot
General
Feb 11, 2017
while now I read China plans 1st structure in disputed South China Sea
source is DefenseNews
Blackstone
Brigadier
China has the right to build on its own territory. Full stop. SCS land features, and only land & features, are Chinese territory from antiquity. Full stop.
While I believe all of the land and features belongs to China through historical rights, the other nations have legitimate sovereignty disputes with China, and their claims need to be resolved peacefully, if possible. Nations without sovereignty claims in the SCS should bud out, because they bring more trouble than solutions and ultimately make peaceful resolutions harder.
On a somewhat related note, if you want to understand Trump's massive increase in military spending, watch this excellent video.
There is a lot of common things between Trump and crazy Kim the 3rd. Both of them understand the importance of military support, Trump has already tick off the media, the intelligence agency, the opposition party and half of the country that come with it. Its no accident that most of the department he plans to cut budget supports democrats much more than Republicans.
But as long as he maintains the support of the military and GOP tax cutters, they will not impeach him. But this also means Trump will be effectively their hostage... so much for his campaign run on "drain the swamp"
Right now the only way for US to beat China is start a war in Asia by proxy, US can do this by give massive low cost/free weapons to China's rivals in SCS, and hopefully one of these leaders is stupid enough to attack China, and force China to strike back, and hopefully it will turn Asia into a war zone for next 20 years, this will force China to abandon all the economic initiatives like OBOR, AIIB, RCEP, at this point only way for US to maintain its dominance is for an Asia lies in ruins like Middle East/Africa.
But it won't be that easy, even if US pursue this strategy, there will be no promise China's rival is stupid enough to attack China, also US risks of China doing the same to Latin America. And the escalation that might get out of hand and became nuclear.
There is a lot of common things between Trump and crazy Kim the 3rd. Both of them understand the importance of military support, Trump has already tick off the media, the intelligence agency, the opposition party and half of the country that come with it. Its no accident that most of the department he plans to cut budget supports democrats much more than Republicans.
But as long as he maintains the support of the military and GOP tax cutters, they will not impeach him. But this also means Trump will be effectively their hostage... so much for his campaign run on "drain the swamp"
Right now the only way for US to beat China is start a war in Asia by proxy, US can do this by give massive low cost/free weapons to China's rivals in SCS, and hopefully one of these leaders is stupid enough to attack China, and force China to strike back, and hopefully it will turn Asia into a war zone for next 20 years, this will force China to abandon all the economic initiatives like OBOR, AIIB, RCEP, at this point only way for US to maintain its dominance is for an Asia lies in ruins like Middle East/Africa.
But it won't be that easy, even if US pursue this strategy, there will be no promise China's rival is stupid enough to attack China, also US risks of China doing the same to Latin America. And the escalation that might get out of hand and became nuclear.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
At this point, even direct US military intervention is no longer assured victory in a shooting war with China anywhere in China's neighbourhood.
US military technology is no longer generations ahead of China's, and most importantly, geography and distance would serverly handicap any US military options against China.
Critics scoff at China's SCS islands out of arrogance and ignorance, these are not mere specs in the ocean any more, the biggest of the island bases is on par with any major naval base anywhere. There are interesting side-by-side comparisons with places like Pearl Harbour for example.
These islands have the critical mass to not only support significant military forces, but most importantly, also the room for those forces to sufficiently disperse that they will not be sitting ducks in a shooting war.
Most significantly, they are close enough as to offer mutual support and reinforcements.
It would be a significant and costly undertaking to just knock one of them out of action temporarily, never mind 3 of them at once.
Failure to not only neutralise all 3, but also land marines and take and hold them will just see those bases repaired and repopulated rapidly by Chinese reinforcements.
Short of boots on the ground, which will be extremely bloody, those islands could take a near infinite amount of hits. A warship or carrier, OTOH, could be sunk or at least knocked out of action for the duration of the conflict, but a single missile hit.
It is actually for this reason I don't think China will build anything like the scale of the exisiting major islands on Scarborough Shoal.
Any base these would be too far away from the other major islands and far too close to the Philippines and the US military bases there. As such, it would become an obvious salient that would be far harder for China to hold, and far easier for the US to capture.
With that base, the US will have a major foothold from which to launch attacks to take the other bases.
I think the most China will go is to build a small listening post there.
Think of it as tit-for-tat for THAAD in SK.
Such a base would be ideal for intel gathering and taking the gloss off of the new US bases in the Philippines, but will have no offensive potential to base forces or launch attacks.
It will have minimal personnel and assets, and is essentially a throw-away tripwire base only useful in peace time, and who's sole role in war time will pretty much be limited to early warning and acting as the 'red shirt' who gets shot first to warn the other, more important assets to go to wartime footing.
If even the US will struggle to take those islands, any proxy would have no chance.
If anything, such a rash and ill-advised move as the US trying to start a proxy war in the SCS would almost certainly work to China's overwhelming advantage. As China would easily wipe the floor with whichever cats paw is stupid enough to try it. That will shatter the illusion of the US as 'security guarantor' for its Asian allies and see a rush of the minor countries to switch sides or at least go neutral.
It's one thing piling on when they think China won't push back, another thing entirely to realise you are playing the role of cannon fodder in a hot war between superpowers.
It's actually hard to see China being able to fundamentally change the current power dynamics in Asia within at least a generation without such a calamitous own goal by the Americans.
L
US military technology is no longer generations ahead of China's, and most importantly, geography and distance would serverly handicap any US military options against China.
Critics scoff at China's SCS islands out of arrogance and ignorance, these are not mere specs in the ocean any more, the biggest of the island bases is on par with any major naval base anywhere. There are interesting side-by-side comparisons with places like Pearl Harbour for example.
These islands have the critical mass to not only support significant military forces, but most importantly, also the room for those forces to sufficiently disperse that they will not be sitting ducks in a shooting war.
Most significantly, they are close enough as to offer mutual support and reinforcements.
It would be a significant and costly undertaking to just knock one of them out of action temporarily, never mind 3 of them at once.
Failure to not only neutralise all 3, but also land marines and take and hold them will just see those bases repaired and repopulated rapidly by Chinese reinforcements.
Short of boots on the ground, which will be extremely bloody, those islands could take a near infinite amount of hits. A warship or carrier, OTOH, could be sunk or at least knocked out of action for the duration of the conflict, but a single missile hit.
It is actually for this reason I don't think China will build anything like the scale of the exisiting major islands on Scarborough Shoal.
Any base these would be too far away from the other major islands and far too close to the Philippines and the US military bases there. As such, it would become an obvious salient that would be far harder for China to hold, and far easier for the US to capture.
With that base, the US will have a major foothold from which to launch attacks to take the other bases.
I think the most China will go is to build a small listening post there.
Think of it as tit-for-tat for THAAD in SK.
Such a base would be ideal for intel gathering and taking the gloss off of the new US bases in the Philippines, but will have no offensive potential to base forces or launch attacks.
It will have minimal personnel and assets, and is essentially a throw-away tripwire base only useful in peace time, and who's sole role in war time will pretty much be limited to early warning and acting as the 'red shirt' who gets shot first to warn the other, more important assets to go to wartime footing.
If even the US will struggle to take those islands, any proxy would have no chance.
If anything, such a rash and ill-advised move as the US trying to start a proxy war in the SCS would almost certainly work to China's overwhelming advantage. As China would easily wipe the floor with whichever cats paw is stupid enough to try it. That will shatter the illusion of the US as 'security guarantor' for its Asian allies and see a rush of the minor countries to switch sides or at least go neutral.
It's one thing piling on when they think China won't push back, another thing entirely to realise you are playing the role of cannon fodder in a hot war between superpowers.
It's actually hard to see China being able to fundamentally change the current power dynamics in Asia within at least a generation without such a calamitous own goal by the Americans.
L