China's SCS Strategy Thread
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
joshuatree
Captain
Looks like Vietnam has been building as far back as 2010. That deflates the charge that China is unilaterally changing geographical features in the Spratlys. Multiple players are doing it.
Yes.
Most of them make imporvements and even add some land reclamation to Islands they claim.
But NOBODY does it to the extent, or on the scale that the PRC is doing it.
The size and scale of their reclamation projects are simply amazing. In some places, they are in fact, in essence, building entire new islands where there was very little to begin with earlier.
Bully for them.
It is a method for the PRC now, to go about enlarging its claims in the SCS and using its massive resource to do so, without a need for any new military invasions or occupations.
Zool
Junior Member
I am not aware of any change/enlargement to Chinese claims in the SCS due to reclamation projects - can you refer to an example? As far as I know China maintains claim to existing natural island chains based on a combination of geographic and historic reasons.
The reclamation projects I think boil down to simple security concerns and the need to base forces outside the mainland to better respond to potential conflict. Similar to US forces based in Diego Garcia rather than California or Hawaii.
joshuatree
Captain
I think he meant enlarging the actual geographical possessions. However, I don't see it as bullying simply because they now have the resources and attention to invest. No country in any claims dispute will simply throttle back their endeavors if the other side is already doing it just because they can do it faster and bigger. West London Reef's growth looks pretty substantial, only difference is that it takes the Vietnamese 4 years. So the intent to go big is there, they just don't have the resources to commit to that endeavor in a shorter time frame or across more possessions.
Except that the inhabitants of the Chagos archipelago were illegally deported by UK before they transfered Diego Garcia to US.
I never said that they created new islands whole cloth, my point was, rather, that the scale of their reclamation efforts dwarfes that of other nations. Principally to the shoals, reefs,islands that they already inhabit.
They do not need to do new military or other types ofoperations to claim other reefs or islands at this time because they can make very effective use of what they already have through said reclamation.
I have not indicated either that this was any kind of bullying when it comes to their efforts on the places they already have claim to. The PRC is simply moving forward with its announced interests in the area (and granted those announcements are a bone of contention) but they are donig so peacefully and IMHO, wisely, in a fashion that basically challenges others to keep up if they can.
Which they cannot in the case of most of those nations...and will not, in the case of proxies/allies like the US, Australia, Japan, etc.
This is a similar tactic that the US took with the Soviets at the end of the Cold War. A challenege to spend enough to keep up with the research, development, and deployments the US was doing. The Soviets tried...and it bankrupted them.
The Chinese are doing the same type of thing...but with large reclamation projects instead. As I say, IMHO, the Chinese are very wise in the way they are going about this.
Come on Delft.
There were no inhabatants of the islands and reefs in question here. Such a comparison does not match what is going on in the South China Sea.
And Deigo Garcia was and is a UK possession, not a US possession. Offically a part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. What they did there was not illegal in the least. Let me explain why.
The first permanent habitation of Deigo Garcia was due to an initial French Colony that they established, and then failed in the 1780s. They then created a coconut plantation colony there in the 1790s, importing forced labor from other islands to run it The British gained possession of the island after the Napoleonic Wars and have really administered it ever since, though it was claimed by the self-governing colony of Mauritius in the 20th century. But the British put that claim to rest by out and out purchasing the entire Chagos Archipelago, which includes Diego Garcia, in the 1960s and creating the British Indian Ocean Terrirtory.
Anyhow, a French Company still owned and ran the plantation in the 1800s, but that company was bought by a British private company concern in the late 1800s.
The people living there were basically those who worked the plantation. In the 1940s the British established a flying boat station there and militarized it with protection throughout the war.
In the 1960s, as the British were lessening their presence in the Indian Ocean, the US Navy requested a place to establish a Naval Comminications center. When so doing, they indicated that they wanted it to be an unpolutated island. This is the time frame that the UK solidified its claim to the island by paying the Colony of Mauritius for it and ending any claim they may have had.
At this time the UK also bought the entire business assets of the British owned Chagos Agalega Company who operated various platnation on the Archipelago, including the plantation on Diego Garcia. The British government then began running that business as a government enterprise. Those plantations, both under their private ownership and then, after the UK government purchase, proved to be losing concerns financially. A lot of this was due to new oils and lubricants in the international marketplace along wit newer, cheaper to operate coconut plantations in the East Indies and Philippines.
They were failing, and going to go out of business.
So, all of this pretty much sealed the fate of the coconut plantation on Diego Garcia and those who lived there operating it. In October of 1971, the plantation on Diego Garcia was closed by the owner of the plantation, the British government. The workers and their families were relocated to other plantations on Peros Bahnos and Salomon atolls to the northwest. Some islanders specifically asked to be moved to the Seychelles, and to Mauritius, and their request was granted.
Then, in 1972, the UK decided to close all of the plantations throughout the Chagos, including those on Peros Banhos and Salomon Islands, and deported the Ilois workers, whom the French had originally brought in to work the plantations, to their ancestral homes on the Seychelles and Mauritius Islands, where some of them had already requested to be moved. But, at the time, the Mauritian government refused to accept the new comers without payment, and in 1974, the UK gave the Mauritian government ₤650,000 to resettle the islanders.
All of this was done legally, delft, and that's the story.
The US, as we know, moved onto Diego Garcia in 1971, when the inhabitants were moved away by the UK. The lease itself was signed in 1966, which will end in 2016, but also includes a 20 year extension taking it out to 2036. I expect this December that the extension will be executed by the US and agreed to by the UJK, if it has not already happeneed. BTW, the payment for the lease was made by way of a $14 million discount on Polaris missile sold to the UK.
Over time, with the end of the Vietnam War, and later with the fall of the Shah in Iran, and then in the run up to Desert Storm and then later to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the 2000s, the US has added more and more infrastructure and capability to the Island, basing not only communications assets, but significant forward based supplies on USNS ships...and the military force to protect them, both land based, aircraft, and naval presence.
But, as this little history lesson shows, what the UK did was not illegal. And the establishment of the US base at Diego Garcia is nothing similar to how the Chinese are developing shoals and reefs into island bases in the SCS.
The Chinses shoals and reefs in the SCS, were (all of them I believe) not inhabited in the first place and the Chinese are creating, through reclamation, islands of their own.
Diego Garcia is not owned by the US, it is leased from the UK. The inhabitants were not indegenous, they were imported to work a plantation by the French, which the UK ultimately bought and owned, and then closed and moved those descendants back to their ancestoral home. That's a huge difference.
Bringing up such a notion that the UK moved those inhabatants illegally...which 1st is not true, and 2nd is not related to the military similarity of Diego Garcia and Chinese bases in the SCS being developed for defense purposes...seems to only being done in order to paint the US and UK in a negative light on a thread that is not about that at all.
Could you please try and forbear in such efforts? SD is not about that type of thing in any case.
Thanks.
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Originally Posted by delft
Except that the inhabitants of the Chagos archipelago were illegally deported by UK before they transferred Diego Garcia to US.
This simply is not true. I was stationed on Diego Garcia in 1985-86.
What Jeff posted, no matter what your read elsewhere, is correct.
Zool
Junior Member
I take your point on the scale of Chinese reclamation efforts and agree with joshuatree, that the pace and size of the work naturally fits China's economic and military capability versus the same efforts of say Vietnam.
My question was about your last paragraph and China using reclamation to enlarge is SCS Claims. I have not seen this and was looking for an article reference if you had one. Any nation using reclamation to support or enlarge territorial claims is a big deal as it is not supported in International Law. I'm thinking now you did not mean China was using this to effect it's Claims but rather it's military leverage in the region? If that is the case I would agree, but I don't see it relating to Claims, which is a pretty specific subject.
As for creating new islands whole cloth and the 'Bully' comment, I did not mention either of those so I'm guessing you are responding to other posters and I'll leave that for them!