He seems to be hinting that they could base submarines on Fiery Cross reef.
How hard would it be to build a 2km tunnel from deep water to the Island?
PLAN SCS Bases/Islands/Vessels (Not a Strategy Page)
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
How hard would it be to build a 2km tunnel from deep water to the Island?
If you look at the map in the article, there is a 1000m depth line within a few hundred meters of the reef. A submarine leaving the harbour should be able to dive to its maximum diving depth after going just a few hundred meters south east.
If they want to build an underground submarine base with an entrance tunnel, the tunnel is likely going to be very short even if the base were a hundred meters below the reef.
Zetageist
Junior Member
That is a lot of ships/dredgers going around Subi.
The shape of reclaimed islands look more like natural island resort.
I think there are plans to make some of these islands into tourist resorts. Zhubi (Subi) and Meiji (Mischief) islands are large enough for the development of the natural tourism resources. It would be great for Chinese tourists as these islands are closer to China and there are no language, currency or visa problems. It would eliminate the "ugly Chinese tourist abroad" problem too. lol.
SCMP reported that there is a flood of tourists to Palau Island(s) and not all the locals are happy. Palau is located in Western Pacific ocean and shares with Indonesia and the Philippines.
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Chinese tourist invasion transforms remote Palau… and not everyone is happy
The number of tourists has soared recently, posing problems for the remote islands
Chinese tourists are flocking to the remote Palau islands as China’s growing number of rich seek new frontiers abroad, but not everyone in the Micronesian paradise is happy about it.
Strapped into life-jackets and screaming with excitement, groups of boisterous Chinese thrill-seekers tear around Palau’s “Milky Way” lagoon on a flotilla of speedboats — a spectacle unfamiliar to locals just a few months ago.
Residents of the archipelago, part of the larger island group of Micronesia, are baffled as to why Chinese travellers represented almost 62 per cent of all visitors in February — up from 16 per cent in January last year.
For businessman Du Chuang from Chengdu in China’s Sichuan province, it is because his increasingly wealthy countrymen are becoming more adventurous, smashing the stereotype of the herded package tour.
Du first started to travel by visiting Hainan, the Chinese island in the South China Sea currently witnessing a massive development of hotel resorts. He then ventured to Thailand before branching out to the Maldives.
“The corals here are more beautiful than Sanya (on Hainan),” the 46-year-old told AFP, scrolling through photos on his phone of a $1,400 （HK$10,871) helicopter trip over Palau’s Seventy Islands that he took his family on.
“Palau is small and magnificent,” added the owner of a successful IT company.
Hoteliers are catching on, with some establishments focusing on Chinese clientele booked out months in advance. At “Sea Passion Hotel” in Koror, 74 of their 75 rooms were occupied by Chinese visitors when AFP visited.
On a beach Chinese women wearing full body suits to protect themselves from the sun pose for selfies with husbands and boyfriends in sleeveless vests, which they send to their friends back home in China’s grey megacities.
Jia Yixin, a 30-year-old from Shanghai, didn’t think twice about paying $1,133 (1,000 euros) for a six-day trip to Palau that she found online.
“It is like paradise here,” she beamed. “In Shanghai the air is polluted but here people respect the environment,” Jia added.
Ironically it is the potential environmental impact of the Chinese invasion that is at the forefront of the minds of many of the islands’ 18,000 population.
Palau welcomed just shy of 141,000 visitors last year, up 34 per cent on 2013, largely on the back of the Chinese visitors. But in February this year, mainland Chinese visitors leaped more than 500 per cent year-on-year to 10,955 — more than half Palau’s total population.
Tourism accounts for close to 85 per cent of Palau’s gross domestic product (GDP), and while profits are up, some are worried the long-term damage may be too great.
“This is a very sudden influx, so we are trying to understand the situation” said Nanae Singeo, managing director of the Palau Visitors Authority, the local tourist board.
“We have never experienced this much tourism before and the magnitude is really giving us a lot of pressure. We are a very tiny country with scarce resources so this sudden increase is an unknown challenge for us,” she added.
Palau has long catered for a particular type of visitor, with up to 70 per cent of tourists coming for world-famous diving in stunning blue waters with pristine corals.
Japanese were traditionally the largest contingent, followed by Taiwanese and Korean visitors. But the majority of the new wave of Chinese tourists seem more interested — for now at least — in lounging on the beach.
“We are not seeing a growth rate to match the number of visitors,” said Singeo. “Tourists are up 34 per cent so technically we should see economic benefits at the rate of 30 per cent or more, but that’s not the case.”
They wreck corals’
On the streets of Koror, some accused Chinese people of being noisy and disrespectful towards the environment.
“They wreck corals and throw their rubbish in the sea,” chided Norman, a taxi driver.
In another recent example, a Chinese tour operator named “Yellow Skin Tour” caused outrage in Palau with leaflets including photos of grinning Chinese tourists holding up turtles they had removed from the water — in one case by its flippers.
Residents have also accused Chinese tourists of being responsible for the deaths of some jellyfish at the natural wonder “Jellyfish Lake”.
Visitors are encouraged to marvel at the harmless creatures by floating on the surface, but some locals complain that many Chinese lack swimming skills and thrash around, disturbing the wildlife.
The Palau government is exploring ways to try to stem the tide of Chinese tourists to the western Pacific Ocean archipelago and this week said the number of charter flights from China would be halved next month.
President Tommy Remengesau said the move was not intended to discriminate against any nationality but was to prevent tourism from becoming too reliant on one market.
“Do we want to control growth or do we want growth to control us?” he asked reporters. “It will be irresponsible for me as a leader if this trend continues. I am not only looking at the present but, as a leader, I am looking after tomorrow.”
But the number of hotels, restaurants and guides in Palau now catering for a Chinese market would suggest that citizens of the world’s second-largest economy are likely to keep coming.
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4G service launched in Nansha Islands
Xinhua, March 20, 2015
BEIJING, March 20 (Xinhua) -- China Mobile started 4G service on the Yongshu Reef and Zhubi Reef on Friday, part of the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea.
The company said the construction and testing of 4G on the islands started before Chinese Lunar New Year on February 19 and took over one month under severe weather and geographical conditions.
The TD-LTE station on the Yongshu Reef is China's first 4G station opened through satellite transmission, according to the company.
Soldiers using their 4G devices at Yongshu
Technicians at work installing the 4G service at Yongshu
joshuatree
Captain
I rather they limit it to eco-tourism to help fellow Chinese understand better about protecting their own environment. It's ironic that they go to Palau to get away from pollution but don't understand their lack of consideration will only destroy what they traveled all the way out there to see. I think as more time progresses, the Chinese tourist in general will get more sophisticated and maybe even bring back the same expectations home.
Considering they are bases first and foremost, I'm not sure getting there for the typical Chinese tourist is necessarily any easier. On the other hand, I think making some of these locations as sustainable aquaculture farms may be a better alternative. It also generates economic activity much like tourism. And if China gets savvy with her soft power, they should use some of these bases as rescue centers for fishing boats of all flags - storms, distress calls, medical emergencies, etc. Certainly would make it harder for critics to challenge the bases if it did good for the general public.
kibitz = to watch other people and make unwanted comments about what they are doing
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Commentary: America the Kibitzer on South China Sea
English.news.cn 2015-03-21 14:10:24
BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Uncle Sam has long been in the grip of many addictions, such as muscle-flexing, preaching and borrowing, but there has turned out to be one more: kibitzing.
The latest symptom of the obsession with unwanted counseling emerged into plain sight earlier this week, when Robert Thomas, commander of the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet, whose country is not a party in the disputes, advised countries to form a combined maritime force for joint South China Sea patrols and even called for more ese involvement.
The urge for presumptuous commenting escalated to a call for naked intervention on Thursday, as a handful of U.S. big-name senators, in a letter to State Secretary John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter, wrongfully pointed an accusing finger at China and clamored for a U.S. strategy to stop what is actually China's legitimate activity in South China Sea.
Such outside kibitzing, not to mention outright meddling, is way out of line for a party that has publicly committed itself not to taking sides on the South China Sea disputes, which are between China and some Southeast Asian nations.
That borders on double-dealing. The commander's proposal smacks of a thinly veiled attempt to cobble together a coalition on the opposite side of China, and the senators' cry sounds like a scheme to stoke misunderstanding and mistrust in a region where Washington is bent on keeping its hegemonic presence.
But the machination is fraught with faulty assumptions and doomed to fail. For starters, one troublemaker cannot alter the overwhelming commitment of parties involved in the South China Sea disputes to safeguarding regional stability and solving the issue through peaceful means.
Southeast Asian countries are clear-eyed enough to see through the U.S. calculus and perceive the hidden agenda behind Washington's overt enthusiasm, and thus refrain from being led astray by the pied piper of the .
Meanwhile, despite the incessant hyping of the "China threat" cliche, the freedom of navigation at South China Sea has never been a problem. The true risk is that relentless exaggeration might someday achieve its sinister goal of sowing discord and eventually throw up waves in the busy body of water.
Thus what Washington should focus on is not the "alarming scope and pace of" what China is doing, but the "alarming scope and pace of" the U.S. meddling, not least the emboldening effect of its "pivot to Asia" strategy on certain hotheads around the South China Sea.
It is high time that Uncle Sam stop making irresponsible remarks and retract his meddlesome hands, so as to allow the parties directly involved in the South China Sea disputes to proceed in their own peaceful way.
-------------------------------------------
Commentary: America the Kibitzer on South China Sea
English.news.cn 2015-03-21 14:10:24
BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Uncle Sam has long been in the grip of many addictions, such as muscle-flexing, preaching and borrowing, but there has turned out to be one more: kibitzing.
The latest symptom of the obsession with unwanted counseling emerged into plain sight earlier this week, when Robert Thomas, commander of the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet, whose country is not a party in the disputes, advised countries to form a combined maritime force for joint South China Sea patrols and even called for more ese involvement.
The urge for presumptuous commenting escalated to a call for naked intervention on Thursday, as a handful of U.S. big-name senators, in a letter to State Secretary John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter, wrongfully pointed an accusing finger at China and clamored for a U.S. strategy to stop what is actually China's legitimate activity in South China Sea.
Such outside kibitzing, not to mention outright meddling, is way out of line for a party that has publicly committed itself not to taking sides on the South China Sea disputes, which are between China and some Southeast Asian nations.
That borders on double-dealing. The commander's proposal smacks of a thinly veiled attempt to cobble together a coalition on the opposite side of China, and the senators' cry sounds like a scheme to stoke misunderstanding and mistrust in a region where Washington is bent on keeping its hegemonic presence.
But the machination is fraught with faulty assumptions and doomed to fail. For starters, one troublemaker cannot alter the overwhelming commitment of parties involved in the South China Sea disputes to safeguarding regional stability and solving the issue through peaceful means.
Southeast Asian countries are clear-eyed enough to see through the U.S. calculus and perceive the hidden agenda behind Washington's overt enthusiasm, and thus refrain from being led astray by the pied piper of the .
Meanwhile, despite the incessant hyping of the "China threat" cliche, the freedom of navigation at South China Sea has never been a problem. The true risk is that relentless exaggeration might someday achieve its sinister goal of sowing discord and eventually throw up waves in the busy body of water.
Thus what Washington should focus on is not the "alarming scope and pace of" what China is doing, but the "alarming scope and pace of" the U.S. meddling, not least the emboldening effect of its "pivot to Asia" strategy on certain hotheads around the South China Sea.
It is high time that Uncle Sam stop making irresponsible remarks and retract his meddlesome hands, so as to allow the parties directly involved in the South China Sea disputes to proceed in their own peaceful way.