South China Sea Strategies for other nations (Not China)

duncanidaho said:

The number for China is not correct. If 145 billion USD is correct then it should be 1.3% instead of 1.8%. If 1.8% is correct then it should be 196 billion USD instead of 145.

GDP(nominal) for China 2015 is 10866 billion USD (Worldbank)

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duncanidaho said:

The number for China is not correct. If 145 billion USD is correct then it should be 1.3% instead of 1.8%. If 1.8% is correct then it should be 196 billion USD instead of 145.

GDP(nominal) for China 2015 is 10866 billion USD (Worldbank)

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Jura said:

according to, ehm, The National Interest (dated November 11, 2016)
China Can Have the Philippines

source:

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The head of U.S. forces in the Pacific has not received any official word from Manila to change its defense relationship with the Philippines – despite months of statements to the contrary from firebrand President Rodrigo Duterte.

Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said even after Duterte used language like the Philippines was “breaking up with America” there were still no substantive changes to extensive bilateral defense agreements between the two countries.

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, Duterte began a weeks-long rhetorical storm in which he said his government would cancel future exercises with the U.S. and then continued to hint since he would cancel

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.

“What I’ve seen is some statements that are, I’ll be frank, are concerning to us, to me, coming from the new president in the Philippines,” Harris said on Tuesday at the Defense One event.
“But despite what he has said, there has been no change in anything with the Philippines… I have no reason to believe that will change.”

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, Manila and Washington signed an extensive Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that allowed for U.S. use of five military bases on the island nation. In particular, the U.S. has launched maritime air patrols from the former Clark U.S. Air Force Base in the country that – in part – are designed to keep an eye on China’s operations in the South China Sea. Closer military ties with the U.S. were part of the previous president Benigno S. Aquino III’s strategy to hedge against China’s expansion in the region. The U.S. also has an ongoing special operations mission in the southern part of the country as part of an assistance operation against Islamic extremists.

“EDCA is on track. Our exercise program, so far, remains on track. We haven’t been asked to remove U.S. forces from the Philippines, including special operations forces operating in Mindano,” Harris said.
“We haven’t been asked to not put our P-3s and P-8s in Clark to do surveillance there.”

In addition,

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to allow the much less capable Philippine military a better understanding of their territory.

Harris is set to travel to the country next week to talk through the next round of bilateral training.

“I would expect a refocusing or rescoping of some of the big exercises in 2017,” he said.
“I’ll know more on Tuesday.”

Beyond the Philippines, Harris offered reassurances to regional allies that the U.S. would remain focused on the Western Pacific when the Trump administration took charge in January.

“The Indo-Asia-Pacific is as important to America as it ever has been. America is a Pacific nation and Pacific power,” he said.
“I continue to serve President Obama until January 20th at which point I will serve President Trump… I have no doubt we’ll continue our steadfast commitment to our allies and partners in the Indo-Asia-Pacific.”

On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump called into question the bilateral defense agreement the U.S. had with Japan and over simplified Japan’s obligation to defend U.S. assets in the event of an attack. (Japan and the U.S. amended their defense cooperation guidelines in 2015 to allow for

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) Trump has also complained of the expense of maintaining U.S. bases overseas.

Since the election, a source familiar with Trump’s national security direction told USNI News last week the new administration is committed to the Western Pacific and will continue a military rebalance to the Pacific “with teeth,” in part with an expanded U.S. Navy — a key plank in Trump’s stated national security policy. Additionally, the source said a Trump administration might ask to renegotiate the terms of foreign U.S. military bases to have the host countries potentially pay more for upkeep but isn’t interested in pulling out of Japan or South Korea.
An important indicator of the Trump team’s path forward in the region will be tied to the outcome of a Thursday meeting between the president-elect and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York.

America’s alliance with Japan is the “linchpin of our national security, diplomacy and economy,” Abe told the National Diet on Monday ahead of the trip to New York, according to

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.
“We will go real deep in talking about these issues and I will build a relationship of mutual trust with him.”

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The three-destroyer pack that set China on edge in the contested South China Sea are back from their western Pacific deployment.

The destroyers Decatur, Momsen and Spruance, which made up the first-of-its-kind Pacific surface action group, returned to the states in the days following the election from their seven-month cruise. During their deployment the ships ducked in and out of the South China Sea, played cat and mouse with the Chinese fleet and surveilled China's man-made islands.

The group was dispatched in April on a quest to fine-tune so-called "distributed lethality" tactics, which breaks up more traditional strike groups and amphibious ready groups. Top surface warfare officer Vice Adm. Tom Rowden has been championing a concept designed to join up surface combatants that can spread out the enemy’s surveillance assets and ships, and that adds long range anti-ship and anti-sub weapons to make the ships more deadly. The destroyers were sent out to test the concepts in the real world.

Spruance and Decatur returned to San Diego Nov. 14; Momsen returned to Everett, Washington, Nov. 10.

During their patrols in the region, all three ships made close passes of Chinese-claimed islands. Most recently the Decatur conducted a freedom of navigation operation in the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam and China. The U.S. conducts the so-called FONOPS to challenge what they view as excessive claims by all parties and not just China.

China claims control of most of the South China Sea, and has sought to bolster those claims by building man-made islands atop reefs and shoals in the Spratly Islands chain. Those claims were invalidated by a ruling in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which said China could not create territorial rights by building islands on reefs and sandbars. China rejected the ruling claiming, as it has from the outset, that the court did not have jurisdiction to rule on the matter.

While it was in theater, the Navy put the ships under the control of the San Diego-based 3rd Fleet, headed by Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, instead of the Yokosuka, Japan-based 7th Fleet that would usually take charge of ships in the Asia-Pacific region. They also had an embarked squadron commander, Destroyer Squadron 31, led by Capt. Charles Johnson.

"I am honored to have served on the first PAC SAG with these hard-working Sailors," Johnson said in a Navy release. "Their loved ones should be proud of the perseverance they demonstrated these past seven months, and we are thrilled to be home."

China claims control of most of the South China Sea, and has sought to bolster those claims by building man-made islands atop reefs and shoals in the Spratly Islands chain. Those claims were invalidated by a ruling in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which said China could not create territorial rights by building islands on reefs and sandbars. China rejected the ruling claiming, as it has from the outset, that the court did not have jurisdiction to rule on the matter.

While it was in theater, the Navy put the ships under the control of the San Diego-based 3rd Fleet, headed by Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, instead of the Yokosuka, Japan-based 7th Fleet that would usually take charge of ships in the Asia-Pacific region. They also had an embarked squadron commander, Destroyer Squadron 31, led by Capt. Charles Johnson.

"I am honored to have served on the first PAC SAG with these hard-working Sailors," Johnson said in a Navy release. "Their loved ones should be proud of the perseverance they demonstrated these past seven months, and we are thrilled to be home."

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Jura said:

This strike group made China nervous — even without an aircraft carrier
really?

source is NavyTimes

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SOUTH CHINA SEA | Thu Dec 1, 2016 | 7:11pm EST
British fighters to overfly South China Sea; carriers in Pacific after 2020: envoy

By David Brunnstrom | WASHINGTON
British fighter planes visiting Japan will fly over the South China Sea and Britain will sail aircraft carriers in the Pacific once they are operational in 2020, given concerns about freedom of navigation there, Britain's ambassador to the United States said on Thursday.

The envoy, Kim Darroch, told a Washington think tank that British Typhoon aircraft currently deployed on a visit to Japan would fly across disputed parts of the South China Sea to assert international overflight rights, but gave no time frame.

Speaking at an event also attended by Japan's ambassador to Washington, Darroch said that most future British defense capacity would have to be directed toward the Middle East, but added:

"Certainly, as we bring our two new aircraft carriers onstream in 2020, and as we renew and update our defense forces, they will be seen in the Pacific.

"And we absolutely share the objective of this U.S. administration, and the next one, to protect freedom of navigation and to keep sea routes and air routes open."

In spite of Britain's preoccupations in the Middle East, "we will try to play our part" in the Pacific, he said.

Four British fighter planes arrived in Japan in October to take part in exercises with Japanese forces at a time of rising tensions over China's pursuit of disputed territory in East Asia, including the South and East China Seas.

Japan's ambassador, Kenichiro Sasae, said the United States, Japan and Britain discussed greater naval cooperation at a meeting at the Pentagon in October and Tokyo welcomed greater British involvement in Asian security.

Darroch said British Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump discussed the importance of all NATO members meeting their defense spending commitments in a telephone call this week, their second since Trump's Nov. 8 election.

Darroch said all NATO states had committed to spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defense, yet only five, including the United States and Britain, were doing so.

"I think the criticism ... during this election campaign that a number of NATO countries aren't doing everything they can ... is entirely fair and we will see how the incoming administration wants to take that forward," he said.

Trump has criticized European NATO members for not meeting their spending commitments and has also called on U.S. Asian allies Japan and South Korea to pay more for their defense or risk the alliances.

Trump has said he plans to build up the U.S. military, and advisers have said he will pursue a policy of "peace through strength" in the Pacific in the face of China'a growing assertiveness.

The advisers say Trump can also be expected to take a more "robust" approach to naval operations to assert navigation rights in the South China Sea, a vital global trade route.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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PanAsian said:

Been waiting for this since France suggested SCS military freedom of navigation patrols. So it may be the US, Japan, Australia, France, and the UK, several colonial powers and a product of colonialism, together conducting gunboat diplomacy to legitimize PR and lawfare for gunboat diplomacy.

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Air Force Brat said:

There ya go, wait till the Queen Elizabeth is launched and doing world tours. Point is the freedom of navigation is not some esoteric cute little idea! People have a legitimate concern with China's little island building game?

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