China's SCS Strategy Thread

[Jeff Head]

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.

My point was meant more to the claims they already have.

They are in fact enlarging the islands, the reefs, the shoals and making larger land possessions out of them.

In terms of enlarging their claims, this is what I meant. Sorry for any mis-construal of meaning that that communiction may have caused.

As a result of making better, larger bases, from which they can assert and protect their interests, yes, the PRC is growing its ability to leverage its military in the area if necessary.

 

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. Any nation using reclamation to support or enlarge territorial claims is a big deal as it is not supported in International Law.

If it's NOT in the law as the actions by China been described than it is NOT against the law. As Jeff had said before this is a smart move by China. Besides no one is stopping the other party from doing the exact same thing as China does.

 

[delft]

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.

Jeff,
A large part of what you say is true. At the time the UK government told the US government that there where no indigenous people in the islands. However the people living there were largely the descendents of people who were imported from India in the 1860's and were all born on the islands. The people were deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles and paid money but they didn't got work and many became alcoholics. The matter has been considered several times by the highest court of UK, the House of Lords and every time the government lost, the last time only a few years ago. The deportations were according to the House of Lords illegal. That for human rights!
Recently the seas around the islands were declared a nature reserve which was interpreted in UK as an effort to make sure that when descendants of the deported people were to return in 2016 or 2036 they wouldn't have the right to fish.

 

[Zool]

If it's NOT in the law as the actions by China been described than it is NOT against the law. As Jeff had said before this is a smart move by China. Besides no one is stopping the other party from doing the exact same thing as China does.

Right. I'm not and I don't think anyone else is suggesting China or Vietnam etc are violating International Law.

The point is about what is 'Recognized' under International Law concerning territory and specifically Territorial Claims having an EEZ which can be solely exploited by the controlling nation. No nation makes claim or expands a current claim based on creating an artificial island or increasing the size of an existing land-mass. It's just not recognized by anyone, including China. Which is why I was interested in Jeff's initial comment about Chinese Claims in connection to the reclamation projects. But we've since cleared that up!

 

[Jeff Head]

Jeff, a large part of what you say is true.

All of it is true.

The matter has been considered several times by the highest court of UK, the House of Lords and every time the government lost, the last time only a few years ago. The deportations were according to the House of Lords illegal. That for human rights!

Actually no.

But before I address that, Delft, this is not a thread about Diego Garcia. Stop bring it up here. Since you did again, I will answer your latest, and that will be the end of it here.

Here is what happened with the lawsuite:

It is true that some of the former inhabatants along with human rights advocates have tried to assert that their rights were violated by the UK as a result of the 1966 agreement with the US for Diego Garcia for a U.S. military base. They have sought additional compensation and repatriation.

The first law suite began in 1973 when 280 of them who were represented by a Mauritian attorney, petitioned the government of Mauritius to distribute the compensation I already spoke of that the UK gave to the Mauritius government. They wanted part of that money to be given to them...which is understandable.

In October 1974, after receiving no assistance from their government, those people presented the British High Commissioner to Mauritius with a petition asking for the UK Government to work on their behalf with the Mauritian Government.

From this initial petition, a series of petitions and lawsuits were presented to the UK. This all ended in March 1982 with an agreement between the UK, the Mauritian Government, and the Islanders...which at the time numbered about 1,400 adults and 160 children. That agreement was meant to settle all claims. And it was this: £4 millions in cash from the British Government and £1 million in land from the Mauritius Government.

But as with all such things...it is never enough. Later they came back for more despite this agreement...which BTW, was not any admission of illegality by the the UK government. It was an agreement between parties.

But, as I say, in 1983, a new set of claims were made. This time by the Chagos Refugee Group in the Mauritius. This group finally got lawsuits against the UK government in 1999, in 2002, and finally in 2006.

They also filed suit in the United States in 2001.

All of these suits demanded additional compensation.

Guess what, delft? The U.S. case and the first two UK cases were DEFEATED on appeal. The third was also DEFEATED, but never appealed.

In 2005, these people sought an Application for Trial with the European Court of Human Rights. That case was brought before that court in 2008, after the defeat of their third UK lawsuite. In December of 2012, the European Court got around to ruling on their application. Guess what, delft? The Euorpean Court also ruled AGAINST them, on jurisdictional grounds.

The British government has denied all along that any illegalities were involved.

Now, I will grant you that some UK officials, since that time, and IMHO for politcal reasons...including a Foreign Minister...have apologized. But even those individuals dispute that these people have a right to be repatriated to the islands.

The plantation was failing, delft, it was going out of business. They were going to close it anyway and the people were not going to have any means of supporting themselves.

Anyway...anyone can research this for themselves.

If you want to PM me or others about this matter further, fine. Not here. it is completely OT.

DO NOT BRING IT UP ON THIS THREAD, OR OTHERS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT..

 

[Equation]

Right. I'm not and I don't think anyone else is suggesting China or Vietnam etc are violating International Law.

The point is about what is 'Recognized' under International Law concerning territory and specifically Territorial Claims having an EEZ which can be solely exploited by the controlling nation. No nation makes claim or expands a current claim based on creating an artificial island or increasing the size of an existing land-mass. It's just not recognized by anyone, including China. Which is why I was interested in Jeff's initial comment about Chinese Claims in connection to the reclamation projects. But we've since cleared that up!

Awww...I see, fair enough. Than again recognition can always come later as time passes by and more and more people lived there on a permanent bases.

 

[shen]

cross-post from the Taiwan thread since this is relevant to the SCS dispute.

Taiwan wonder if the US will help if Vietnam attack Taiping Island.

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The enemy could be Chinese or Vietnamese. But the detente between Taiwan and China and Beijing's wish to collaborate with Taipei in safeguarding their common interests in the South China Sea make it next to impossible for the People's Liberation Army to attack Taiping. Of course, it would be a different story if the Democratic Progressive Party clawed back to power in 2016. The opposition insists that Taiping belongs to Taiwan, not the Republic of China, and does not want to accept the Consensus of 1992, a modus vivendi based on the one-China principle with different interpretations under which relations across the Taiwan Strait have been rapidly improved over the past six years.

So the enemy would have to be the Vietnamese, rather than the Filipinos who have few means to attack a defended island larger than Pagasa. Could the small Coast Guard garrison on Taiping hold off the Vietnamese, who fought the Chinese invasion successfully in 1979? The island far away from Taiwan is indefensible. Could a marine battalion drive out the Vietnamese after they occupied Taiping? Unlikely, if not altogether impossible, without outside help.

Would Uncle Sam come to Taiwan's rescue? He wants Taiwan to give up its U-shaped or 12-dashed line claim in the South China Sea. The United States could restrain the Philippines from attacking Taiping but would never help defend the island just as it wouldn't in a case of Taiwan being attacked from across the strait. Washington would only pay lip service as help if the People's Liberation Army were in a one-in-a-million chance to invade Taiwan, but couldn't and wouldn't persuade Vietnam to give up its claim to Taiping.

The only help Taiwan can hope to have when Taiping is under Vietnamese attack is from China, which claims sovereignty over the South China Sea based on the same U-shaped line.

 

[wtlh]

Taiwan is caught between a rock and hard-place on the issue of the SCS islands.

 

[delft]

Taiwan is caught between a rock and hard-place on the issue of the SCS islands.

Only that part that believes there is a future for Taiwan outside China.

 

[joshuatree]

cross-post from the Taiwan thread since this is relevant to the SCS dispute.

Taiwan wonder if the US will help if Vietnam attack Taiping Island.

Personally, it's best strategy would be to make Taiping into a naval base. Strong enough to deter a consideration of attack by Vietnam, tolerable to China as they are "One China", and could be appealing to the US to have a credible counterweight in the Spratlys that is aligned with the US. It also gives Taiwan a base further away from China to give it more breathing room.