broadsword
Brigadier
Or maybe China has quietly agreed to let them have the islands?
China's SCS Strategy Thread
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
Or maybe China has quietly agreed to let them have the islands?
They simply lack the will to change the status quo.
There's no need for China and Vietnam to go to war over this; soft confrontation and negotiations will continue for many years.
Technically China can't outbuild Vietnam since they control only a few islets in the spratlys. Vietnam controls the vast majority of islets in the spratlys.
I think there is some implicit understanding of that. Who really cares if Vietnam expands a few island it already occupies?
Well, what exactly is there to justify this? The island expansion is targeting U.S. military more than anyone else.
Do you want count the acreage or the hangars or the missiles? Chinese islands can keep growing in size.
Nope they cannot. Island building is done on existing low tide elevation which are maybe couple of feet under water. So you only need a little bit of soil to build them up. Within a few meters from the island, you are no longer dealing with shallow sea floor but several 100 meter to km deep ocean floor. No one can build on that.
Practically speaking China can keep expanding much more than they have, because they have not built on the entire low tide elevation.
Example here of Mischief reef:
They can expand on the grey low tide areas in the image. But they cannot expand on the deep ocean seen in the image as deep blue areas.
But Vietnam has much more islets they control and can do island building if they want to utilize their entire controlled islets. China only controls 7 features and has already built most of it.
Most of the Map is Vietnamese flag. PRC flag is only on 7 features.
Again, you are arguing about practical possible physical feature they can build over, I am talking about what they could add military value to these islands over time. Given vietnam doesn’t even have a modern fighter jet, what they could theoretically build over is irrelevant.
Ofcourse China has and will continue to have overwhelming Air and naval superiority over Vietnam in the SCS even if they have zero island. They can project power from Hainan and use the navy. But I argued against your original statement that China can outbuild Vietnam. There is a limitation about how much China can outbuild in terms of artificial islands.
For now China is probably tolerating Vietnam building those islands, but if there is a political change in Vietnam and a pro-US govt comes to power, Communists are overthrown, those islands will quickly become threats. Vietnam could give those islands to US as outposts for example. US could donate massive number of weapons to Vietnam.
Vietnam doesn't have to rely on just its own military power, they can borrow from US and make those islands very potent threats.
Mischief could be completely filled in and many massive runways built.
Technically yes given the internal lagoon is only 27m deep but it'll be extremely expensive and thus unlikely to be ever done. Best they'll probably do is fill in the rest of the reef around the lagoon.
Yeah. Sabah is the most probable future battleground in the SCS. It's much easier to fight Malaysia than China. The Philippines has on paper, a more modern military than Malaysia. Thanks to new procurements, and general paralysis in Malaysia.
Only think is the people associated with Sulu may not be as loyal the Philippines or Malaysia. Since both nations are artificial post-colonial constructs. Any conflict over Sabah is gonna be really messy.