In the most recent serious incident, on 17 May, two Chinese fighter jets intercepted a US Navy EP-3 intelligence and surveillance aircraft about 50 nautical miles east of Hainan Island. This incident could have violated agreed upon procedures between the United States and China to manage such encounters. It follows earlier incidents when Chinese jet fighters intercepted US P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft over the South China and Yellow seas.
The United States recently conducted its third freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea since China started its extensive land reclamation and building of airfields and support facilities on reclaimed land in the Spratly Islands. The latest FONOP involved a US warship sailing close by the disputed Fiery Cross Reef. In March, the United States sent a small fleet of warships — comprising aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, two destroyers, two cruisers and a Japan-based US Seventh Fleet flagship — into contested waters to counter the presence of China.
During his recent visit to Vietnam, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would be lifting its longstanding ban on sales of lethal military equipment to Vietnam. This has been construed as part of a strategy to help Vietnam defend itself against an increasing threat from China in the South China Sea. In return, Vietnam might grant the United States access to the strategic Cam Ranh Bay military base. Along with access to bases in Palawan in the Philippines, this would markedly enhance America’s ability to project military power into the South China Sea.
Lyle Goldstein from the US Naval War College suggests in his recent book Meeting China Halfway that rather than enhancing US military engagement with Vietnam, Washington should be ending it, arguing that ‘recent overtures toward military cooperation between Hanoi and Washington have violated reasonable principles of geopolitical moderation’. Unfortunately, moderation has not been evident in any recent developments in the South China Sea.
What is significant about recent American naval activities in the region is that Washington has chosen to announce them with a blaze of publicity. This suggests a clear intention to confront China and to show the world that the United States is doing so.
India added to tensions recently when it sent a force of four naval vessels into the South China Sea for a two-and-a-half-month-long deployment, which includes participation in Exercise Malabar off Okinawa, jointly with the US Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Predictably, Beijing reacted strongly to this naval deployment, saying that New Delhi should not encourage Tokyo and Washington to bring added tensions to the region.
Meanwhile a Chinese strike group of three guided missile destroyers, two frigates and a supply ship, in addition to a submarine and aircraft carrier, have been conducting exercises in the South China Sea. This group patrolled off Chinese-controlled reefs in the Spratly Islands, including Fiery Cross Reef, only a day before the American FONOP near that reef.
All this is looking like dangerous brinkmanship. All the major powers in the South China Sea are trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the edge of active conflict.
Anyone who knows China and its history will know that China will go to the brink. But it will not be China that actually goes over the brink. It’s much more likely to be one of the countries taking China to the brink that does so. China, with a ‘home ground’ advantage and numerous military and civil assets in the region, can readily create a situation where one of the other parties will be forced to fire the first shot or to back down. Hopefully, though, current rules of engagement won’t allow a first shot to be fired. But we can’t be sure of that.
Significantly, the countries that are taking China to the brink are extra-regional players with often overstated interests in the South China Sea. They are ‘burning their boats behind them’, with nowhere to go other than to back down or fire the ‘first shot’. They have no concept of an end game other than compelling China to back down and follow their ‘rule of law’. But that is not going to happen.
The sad reality is that all this brinkmanship is adding to the strategic distrust that pervades the region at present.
Unfortunately, no existing regional forum has been prepared so far to address the implications of greater military activity in the South China Sea and the increased tensions that result. The sovereignty disputes currently attract greater attention. This obsession with sovereignty leads to a situation where sovereignty is not just an obstacle to effective management of the South China Sea and activities within it, but also to any preparedness to address measures to demilitarise the sea.
Demilitarising the South China Sea should be an objective of all stakeholders. To this end, China should clarify its claims in the South China Sea and refrain from activities that might be seen as assertive or aggressive. Japan and India should moderate their activities, and the United States should step back from its current naval initiatives, including by not undertaking provocative FONOPs. These prominent players in the South China Sea should all back off from their current military activities, lest the region continue down a track that could lead to more serious incidents and even conflict.
Sam Bateman is an adviser to the Maritime Security Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He is a former Australian naval commodore who has worked in force development areas of the Department of Defence in Canberra.
Another great piece by Dr Sam Bateman. It’s very true that “Brinkmanship in the South China Sea helps nobody”.
1 “Anyone who knows China and its history will know that China will go to the brink. But it will not be China that actually goes over the brink.”
This is also true because 1) Admiral Sun Jianguo, Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission stressed at the recent security dialogue in Singapore that China will not make trouble but does not fear trouble, 2) China had enunciated a ‘No First Use’ policy as early as 1964, which China had confirmed in 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2011 that she will “not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances”.
To allow the US the luxury to make the first nuclear strike on China is an insane military doctrine, unless China had a fail-safe, second strike capability as a deterrence, even way back in 1964.
What about today when China has an estimated 3,000 nuclear bombs and has sent astronauts and ASATs into space and probes to the Moon?
China has also tested a hypersonic nuclear bomber for the 7th time in late 2015. The US missile shield is no defense because this nuclear bomber can glide and maneuver violently at the edges of space and then rain down on eight targets in the USA, at 10 times the speed of sound.
Imagine, if China manages to launch only just 5 of these hypersonic bombers, in the fog of war, 40 major US cities will be obliterated by hydrogen bombs, never mind about the DF-41 ICBMs launched from China or nuclear-tipped, cruise missiles launched from Chinese and Russian subs, already in the Pacific and Atlantic.
Chinese military planners are not stupid. When they see US B52 nuclear bombers flying over the South China Sea, they are not going to roll over and pretend to play dead.
They have all read ‘The Art of War’ and they know that “A good General makes sure that he will not lose the next war and then he sits back and waits for the enemy to start one.”
Like Russia, China is already prepared for a nuclear war with the US, and when push turns to shove, all the GPS will be taken out immediately and all the 11 US carrier groups could be sunk by nuclear bombs, even when they are 1,200 nm from the Chinese coasts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_GHE2DjsqQ
In such an apocalyptic nuclear war started by the US or Japan, experts estimate that at least 600 million innocent people will perish in China, 250 million in America, 100 million in Japan and 300 million in Europe, especially if Russia is involved.
Has Ashton Carter got the testicular fortitude to face such a doomsday scenario, which will usher in a nuclear winter , massive global famine, disease and pestilence, hitherto, on an unprecedented and catastrophic scale, in which the living will wish they had died? I don’t think so.
2 “the countries that are taking China to the brink are extra-regional players with often overstated interests in the South China Sea. They have no concept of an end game other than compelling China to back down and follow their ‘rule of law’. But that is not going to happen.”
How prescient. China is a major nuclear power and she will never “back down and follow their egregious ‘rule of law’”.
3 “It’s much more likely to be one of the countries taking China to the brink that does so.”
My bet is that the United States won’t be the one as it has too much to lose. In fact, IMHO, a Trump administration will close many foreign military bases to conserve military funding as the US is insolvent, according to GAAP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Fmt2FBctQ
A Hillary administration may display some testosterone initially but will she have the intestinal fortitude to fire the first nuclear-tipped cruise missile into China? I doubt it, because Bill won’t allow it.
A Sanders administration could seek peace.
If I were a gambling man I shall lay my bet on a heavily-indebted Japan (debt to GDP 245%), which will desperately leverage on the mutual-defense pact with the US to help, say the Philippines (under an unpredictable president Duterte) to invade and occupy the Scarborough shoal or Taiping island in the South China Sea (the reverse of Pearl Harbor), which will elicit a strong military response from China, which will conveniently bring Uncle Sam into the fray. As stated by Sun Tzu in the Art of War: “All war is based on deception.”
To show that this is a likely scenario, on 7 June, Japan’s defense minister, Gen Nakatani stated at the security dialogue in Singapore that “Japan will help Southeast Asian nations build their security capabilities to deal with unilateral, dangerous and coercive actions in the South China Sea.”
And to add to the Machiavellian intrigue, “Abe just sent a special adviser to meet Duterte in the Philippines to press him to persist with the UNCLOS arbitration strategy so that the whole multi-lateral magilla that gives Japan a stronger diplomatic footing down South China Sea way doesn’t go all agly.”
http://www.unz.com/plee/deja-vu-all-over-again-at-shangri-la/
Hope I am wrong because if there is a full-blown nuclear war over ‘rocks, shoals and reefs’ in the South China Sea, no nation will be spared and life on Planet Earth, will never be the same again, just desserts and a fitting end for homo sapiens, arguably, the most dangerous species in the Universe.
Folks, Peace is, by far, a better option.
Kittan speaks as if he/she is a spokesman/woman in charge of the press of the CCP. He/she tells that China is a peace-loving country and does not intend to do anything harmful, and is actually not doing any harm, to international peace.
The Chinese are always like that. They are doing it to each other within China. It is their deeply ingrained way of having lived and living in their conflictual society.
But that does not mean they are reckless and insensitive to the real power relations. They are enormously sensitive and attentive, because of that, to the reality. This is their Realpolitik.
One step backing off has never and will never be met with one step backing off by China. Which has restrained itself in the South China Sea, China or the United States and South East Asian countries? Prof. Bateman seems to suggest that the US and South East Asian countries have been provocative.
The US and its allies should start patiently from a low level of military response, and patiently watch China’s response, and patiently go up the ladder of escalation.
Kittan,
You quoted some of my comment in 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8. I do not think I will have to take down what you quoted.
First about the Nanjing atrocities. Chinese solidiers took off their their uniforms, wore civilian clothes and mingled into the civilian people. Yet, they did not stop trying to kill Japanese from amid the civilian sectors. The Japanese were taken unawares and panicked. That started all.
At that time, Life, an American pictorial magazine, reported about forty thousand Chinise were killed. In France, mass media reported about thirty thousand. China and Japan were engaged in military hostilities, so the number of soldiers that died in battle and the number of those who hid them selves in non-combat Chinese can be subtracted from thiry or forty thousand if these number were correct.
About twenty thousand Chinese soldiers ran into the Western settlements. It was illegal for the settlements to take them in, but the Japanese respected their status in international law and did not chase after the Chinese into them.
I do not say everything the Japanese did should be condoned on account of that all. A considerable number of innocent Chinese would have undoubtedly been murdered.
Chiang Kaishek’s China held a tribunal in Nanjing. There were Chinese judges and prosecutors present there; but no Japanese defendants and no lawyer to defend them. The verdict was that about three hundred Chinese were killed by the Japanese. (It was in 1946 or 1947. I do not have a book of records and I cannot be more specific.)
The Japanese and the Chinese government agreed to set up a joint team to look into the Nanjing Incident (atrocities). When they discussed details of how the work should be carried out, the Japanese said that the investigation should be conducted to arrive at the number as close as possible of the victims, but the the Chinese retorted there was no need to do that. The team ended up doing nothing.
About the comfort women. I (Michi) posted a comment, American Humanism, on Chinese Comfort Women, amazon uas.
A Japanese, Seiji yoshida, said that he had kidnapped over two hundred Korean women. Later he said he had lied. Still later he said telling lies was necessary and that it was what mass media were doing.
You said about 25 million Chines were killed. Jiang Zemin said 35 million in Moscow in 1993 or 94.
I posted five comments concerning this on http://www.Yaleglobal.yale.edu/Alistair Burnett/War Drums in Asia: Back to the European Future. Prof. Lehman has a comment posted there, too.
About the bombs. I sent a comment on Project-Syndicate.org/Aryeh Neier/Hiroshima Wth or Without Remorse?.
I (Michi) also sent twenty comments on http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/Jed Lea-Henry/Hiroshima: the beginning and the end of nuclear history. I would like you to read them if you do not mind.
Having said that all, I do not deny Japan had an aggressive and colonial policy. But it was vasltly different from what is generally believed. For instance, read, if interested, my two comments on Project-Syndicate.org/Rober Shiller/Is Russia’s National Character Authoritarian?.
I said, quoting from David S. Landes, “Japan was the best colonial power of all time,” in my comment on http://www.eastasiaforum/Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein/South Korea’s dark history still unresolved. I did not refer to Japan’s rule in Manchuria. Japan spent far more money there than it drew benefit, as in Korea. Manchuria was the best industrialized part in China at the time of Japan’s surrender. Mao took it, which was one big reason that he was able to kick Chiang Kaishek out to Taiwan and also the reason that he was able to engage in the Korean War.
You referred to the Taiwan-Japan Treaty of 1952. Japan cannot hand over and/or could not have handed over what it did not possess.
The Chinese logic of “2+2=5” (Jeffrey Wasserstrom/China In The 21st Century) is internationally infamous.
Just proclaiming this island is mine does not make it your land. I heard this story: Mussolini once proclaimed the Mediterranean Sea was a Italian lake. No country made a protest.
I put up four comments on http://www.eastasiaforum/Hugh White/Need to face the facts in Asia. I told what diffenciates China and Japan from each other. I (Michi) made a comment, It Is Not China’s Fault, on Michael Pilsbury/The Hundred-Year Marathon, amazon usa.
As for Korea, which first internationized the comfort women, “it (Korea) may have become more uniformly and fully permeated by
Confucian ideas than China was itself. In fact, Korea became in many ways an almost model Confucian society…(Edwin O. Reischauer, East Asia: Tradition and Transformation, co-authored by J. K. Fairbank and A. M. Craig).”
We need a mirror to see ourselves. Ralph Townsend/The Ways That Are Dark may serve as one such mirror.
1 “Having said that all, I do not deny Japan had an aggressive and colonial policy.”
Thank you. So when will Japan send a written state to state apology to China and Korea to restore normal relations?
2” I did not refer to Japan’s rule in Manchuria. Japan spent far more money there than it drew benefit, as in Korea.”
No one invited Japan to invade Manchuria and to change its name to Manchukuo. Blame Japan’s failed plans to create a world empire. Under the nefarious plans, to conquer China, Japan had to invade Manchuria first and steal its rich resources, a textbook strategy used by the Western colonialists, like France and Britain in other colonies.
3 “You referred to the Taiwan-Japan Treaty of 1952. Japan cannot hand over and/or could not have handed over what it did not possess.”
Not true. If Japan allegedly did not colonize the Spratly and Paracel islands, as you claimed, then why did Japan agree in Article 2 of the Treaty of Peace signed on 28 April 1952, that ” Japan has renounced all right, title, and claim to Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) AS WELL as the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands”? (emphasis mine).
In the Unconditional Surrender Documents signed on 2 September 1945, Japan proclaimed in Para 6 that “We hereby undertake for the Emperor, the Japanese Government, and their successors to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith, and to issue whatever orders and take whatever action may be required by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by any other designated representative of the Allied Powers for the purpose of giving effect to that declaration.”
Well, Article 8 of the 1945 Potsdam Declaration stated that “The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out.” And the 1943 Cairo Declaration was explicit: “Japan will also be expelled from ALL other territories which she has taken by violence and greed”.
Taiwan and the Pescadores were ceded to Japan in perpetuity, under the 1895 sham Treaty of Shimonoseki, after Japan started a war with China.
Japan also annexed China’s Diaoyu islands in 1895 as war booty and renamed them the Senkaku islands only in 1904, after failing to do so in 1885, when the Foreign Minister warned Japan not to put national markers there, as “this must necessarily invite China’s suspicion”.
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/the-inconvenient-truth-behind-the-diaoyusenkaku-islands/?_r=0
Japan invaded China in July 1937.The French took advantage of the fog of war and invaded the Spratly and Paracel islands on 3 July 1938.
But on 1 March 1939, Japan invaded and colonized the Spratly and Paracel islands.
The French were summarily evicted. When Vichy France which, like Japan, was aligned with Nazi Germany, protested, Japan’s raison d’etre was that it was wartime and Japan could annex China’s territories.
4 “The Chinese logic of “2+2=5” ..”
The marketing theory is that when two companies or two countries decide to work together, they achieve much more than if they work separately. The resultant gain is attributed to Synergy.
In sharp contrast, the Japanese Imperial Army’s flawed logic was when it invaded and brutalized the Asian nations in WW2, Japan could create a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” We know how that ended very badly for Japan.
5 “Just proclaiming this island is mine does not make it your land.”
The Spratly and Paracel islands were already returned by Japan to the ROC, by extension to China under the one-China policy, recognized by Australia. The Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea have not been returned to China.
By merely proclaiming that the Diaoyu islands belong to Japan does not make them Japan’s islands either.
The two countries, Japan and South Korea, restored the normal relations with the treaty of 1965, and Japan and China with the treaty of 1978. But the two countries, China and South Korea began to say things after this like “Japan has not apologized yet,” or “Japan is not repentant for its past at all.” And, for instance, Japan gave a lot of grants and aid to China, but the CCP has kept the Chinese people in the dark about it.
I said Manchuria was industrialized by Japan but I did not intend to mean by it that the Japanese policy after Sepetember 18, 1931 was not an aggression. It was an act of aggression.
The “incident” of September 18, 1931 was not a deliberate policy of the Japanese government; it was started as a kind of secret mutiny by the Japanese Guandong army’s field-grade officers stationed in China. The two governments, Wakatsuki and Inugai cabinets, did their utmost to restrain the army in vain.
Japan had no plan at any time to conquer China and create a world empire.
Japan occupied, in name for strategic purposes, the Spratly and the Paracel Isanld, (perhaps in 1938?). The islands did not belong to Japan.
The Chinese envoys to and back from Okinawa could not get to Okinawa or go back from there without the assistance of Okinawan pilots. /The name, Senkaku, comes from the English “Pinnacles.” But each isle had a Japanese name before 1905.
It was no booty of the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95. Li Hongzhang, the Chinese plenipotentiary at the Sino-Japanese peace conference at Shimonoseki, did not make any protest before, during and after the conference. The Senkakus were not at all discussed.
A Chinese fishing boat from Fujian shipwrecked and the fishermen were rescued by the Japanese islanders of one of the Senkaku Islands. The Chinese consul in Nagasaki sent letters of thanks to the leaders of the island./China nor Taiwan made any protest when the San Francisco Treaty was signed and the islands were put under US adiministraion and when they were returned to Japan. /After they were returned, the US forces used one of them as a firing and bombing range but the two countries made no protest. /The CCP established itself in Beijing in October, 1945. It expected to be invited to the San Francisco Peace conference. It discussed in May, 1950, what stance to take on the islands in San Francisco; did they belong to Japan or to Taiwan (and therefore to China)? The Japanese words, Senkaku, were used in the prepared paper for discussion, not the Chinese words. /Many islanders of Okinawa were not frustrated with their legal and political status under US administration and with the US bases. The People’s Daily introduced on its January 8, 1953, issue, the Senkaku as islands belonging to Japan, using the Japanese words, not the Chinese words, and insisted that the Okinawan people’s efforts must be assisted. /Zhou Enlai said to the chairman of the Japanese political Party, Komei, in July, 1972 that the Chinese were indifferent to the Senkaku and that after ECAFE announced undersea oil fields around the Senkaku, they took interest. /There were a lot of maps and textbooks, used in China and Taiwan, that showed the Senkaku belonging to Japan. The two governments recalled them.
I (Michi Moriyama) sent a comment, October 14 and two, October 15, 2010, on http://www.nytimes.com/Nikolas Kristof/Look Out for the Diaoyu Islands. I (Michi Moriyama) also sent two comments, Oct. 18,2012, and nine comments, Oct. 19, on http://www.nytimes.com/Han-Yi Shaw/The Inconvenient Truth Behind the Diayu/Senkaku Islands.
1 “China and South Korea began to say things after this like Japan has not apologized yet,” or “Japan is not repentant for its past at all.”
This is true. Has Japan made an official state to state apology to China? No. But on 15 August 1995. PM Tomichii Murayama apologized “for the damage and suffering caused by Japan to its Asian neighbors.”
2 “And, for instance, Japan gave a lot of grants and aid to China, but the CCP has kept the Chinese people in the dark about it.”
But since no war reparation was paid or sought, that was a token compensation.
2 “I said Manchuria was industrialized by Japan but I did not intend to mean by it that the Japanese policy after Sepetember (sic) 18, 1931 was not an aggression. It was an act of aggression.”
Yes,it was an act of naked aggression. In fact Japan was so aggressive and confident of keeping Manchuria for good that Japan changed the name to Manchukuo and invited the last Emperor of China, Henry Pu Yi to be the new Emperor of Manchukuo. Arrangements were also made for a Japanese princess to marry his brother to make sure the bloodline has Japanese DNA, when Henry Pu YI died. It was all an egregious Japanese plan for a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. It was announced in a radio address entitled “The International Situation and Japan’s Position” by Foreign Minister Hachirō Arita, on June 29, 1940” (Wikipedia).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere
3 “The “incident” of September 18, 1931 was not a deliberate policy of the Japanese government; it was started as a kind of secret mutiny by the Japanese Guandong army’s field-grade officers stationed in China.”
Say what you like. All war is based on deception. Gen Kanji Ishikawa and another officer Itagaki Seishirō were the recalcitrant officers but they got away scot free. In a mutiny the general in charge is court marshalled and if found guilty, he is executed. But general Ishikawa got away and was even promoted.
4 “Japan had no plan at any time to conquer China and create a world empire.”
And I bet you will also claim that Admiral Yamamoto had no plans to bomb Pearl Harbor either. Japan’s plans were the invasion of Manchuria then China, the Pacific islands and then the United States or Europe. But in China it dawned on the Japanese generals that Japan had bitten more that it could chew and so Japan decided to bomb Pearl Harbor, without conquering China. That was the fatal mistake.
5 “Japan occupied, in name for strategic purposes, the Spratly and the Paracel Isanld, (perhaps in 1938?). The islands did not belong to Japan.”
It is a contradiction that Japan, which you claim “had no plan at any time to conquer China and create a world empire” would even bother to invade and colonize the Paracel and Spratly islands in 1939 “for strategic purposes”.
And if these islands don’t belong to Japan, why did Japan agree to “renounced all right, title, and claim to Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) as well as the Spratley Islands and the Paracel Islands.” In the Treaty of Peace signed on 28 April 1952? If Japan did not own the islands, why did Japan renounce the Titles?
This Treaty was evidence that Japan renounced them, after colonizing them in 1939, and returned them to China, under the Treaty of Peace. Let’s leave it at that.
Correction:
wrong: Many islanders of Okinawa were not
frustrated…
right: Many islanders of Okinawa were
frustrated
@ Yoshimichi Moriyama
1 “Kittan speaks as if he/she is a spokesman/woman in charge of the press of the CCP.”
I am honored that you think that I am that qualified.
Prof Jean-Pierre Lehmann recently wrote a piece entitled “Forget Pearl Harbor, Abe should go to Nanjing” here: http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/forget-pearl-harbor-abe-should-go-to-nanjing
Is Prof Lehmann also qualified to be “in charge of the press of the CCP” for telling the truth?
2 “He/she tells that China is a peace-loving country, etc”
The last time I checked, China did not invade Japan, rape and massacre 300,000 innocent people in two weeks of murderous orgy by crazed troops or experiment on humans, using deadly diseases, or kidnap and force 200,000 women into sexual slavery like what Japan did in a war which killed 25 million Chinese from 1931 to 1945 and which only came to a stop when two American atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But don’t take my word for it. Prof Lehmann wrote “All of the G-7 nations, to greater or lesser extents, with Japan the greatest, participated in the plunder of China in the late 19th/first half of 20th centuries without any regard to principles of international law, just raw power.”
3 “The Chinese are always like that. They are doing it to each other within China. It is their deeply ingrained way of having lived and living in their conflictual society.”
If this is not a stereotype, racist remark then what is?
4 “But that does not mean they are reckless and insensitive to the real power relations.”
You got that right. China has said the Pacific Ocean is big enough to accommodate two big powers. A rising China does not want to fall into the ‘Thucydides trap’.
President Xi pledged on 7 Nov 2015 in Singapore that a strong China will never bully a weak nation and a rich China will never humiliate a poor nation.
He also said that “China would commit an initial $2bn to establish an assistance fund to meet the post-2015 goals in areas such as education, healthcare and economic development. China would seek to increase the fund to $12bn by 2030.”
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/sep/27/china-pledges-2bn-for-development-goals-and-says-it-will-write-off-debts
5 “One step backing off has never and will never be met with one step backing off by China.”
Not true. Japan should heed Prof Lehmann’s advice that “By Mr Abe visiting Nanjing and paying homage to those who were killed, brutalised and raped, Japan would be taking one giant step to peace in the Asia-Pacific.”
The alternative is unthinkable as Abe may pave the way for resurgence in Japanese militarism, which will end badly for the Japanese people. See my piece here:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/15022016-is-abe-paving-the-way-for-a-resurgence-in-japanese-militarism/
6 “Which has restrained itself in the South China Sea, China or the United States and South East Asian countries?”
In case, the nuance escaped anyone it was Japan which signed the Treaty of Peace on 28 April 1952, predicated on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, which Japan promised to abide by and had already returned the Spratly and Paracel islands to the ROC, by extension to China under the one-China policy recognized by the US, Japan, all Asean nations, NZ and Australia.
http://www.taiwandocuments.org/taipei01.htm
China made a declaration on 4 Sept 1958 of a 12 nm territorial waters in all its territories, which included the Spratly and Paracel islands.Why is Japan not admitting this fact of History?
North Vietnam’s Premier Pham Van Dong even wrote to Premier Zhou En Lai, ten days later, to acknowledge the 12 nm territorial water in the Spratly and Paracel islands as declared by China. Why the change now? The short answer is OIL.
When ECAFE discovered oil in the South China Sea (SCS) in the late 60s, Vietnam grabbed 29 features, Malaysia 6, Brunei one and the Philippines eight.
Did China invade these errant countries? No. Does China act with restraint and want a bilateral dialogue with each of the claimants? Yes.
Now about 40 countries back China’s stance for a peaceful resolution to the disputes in the SCS because the arbitral tribunal and Unclos have no power to decide on sovereignty matters.
7 “Prof. Bateman seems to suggest that the US and South East Asian countries have been provocative.”
Actually, by telling the truth, Dr Bateman, a former Australian Naval Commodore, is one of the most consistent voices of reason in Australia to help calm down the explosive situation in the SCS.
8 “The US and its allies should start patiently from a low level of military response, and patiently watch China’s response, and patiently go up the ladder of escalation.”
No. This is a Cold War mentality and will only lead to an unintended, apocalyptic nuclear war.
I think at least one of the reasons the Chinese government chose to become assertive in South China Sea is to divert the attention of Chinese from the slowing economy. There is an old saying in China that goes, “内无法家拂士 外无敌国外患者 国恒亡”. Therefore, to prevent the fall of the communist government, amid the economic slowdown, CCP chose to escalate confrontation with Southeast Asian claimants over the SCS dispute.
Did CCP want to go into confrontation with US at the beginning? I don’t think so. At the time when CCP started to build up the fake islands, US was embroiled in the Middle East over ISIS and constant terrorist attacks. The Russians were confronting EU over Ukraine as well. That seemed to be a perfect time for China to act but alas, the CCP underestimated the vigilance of US government and now they are in a situation that I believe they don’t want to be in if given a second chance.
Therefore, I don’t think the Chinese government will be the instigator should a military conflict happen in Asia. However, under Xi administration, the Chinese government also won’t back down if this is what the US government is trying to achieve. So it all depends on what the US wants and how the US acts.
Part of me suspects that the US may want to bring chaos and turmoil in Asia as they did in the Middle East by removing Iraq as a force of stability in 1991, that the US, in order to protect its global hegemony, will go so far as to start a limited WW3. I am terrified by this possibility and the ascension of either Hillary (a Hawk) or Trump (a lunatic) to POTUS makes this prospect closer to reality.
1 “the Chinese government chose..to divert the attention of Chinese from the slowing economy.”
Too simplistic. China’s forecast GDP for 2015 was 7.1per cent. The actual was 6.9per cent while the US GDP growth slowed down to 1.4per cent in the last quarter of 2015. Any Western Government would ‘kill’ to get a GDP growth of 6.9per cent.
The slowdown in China in 2015 was of little consequence. China’s strategy is to double her GDP from 46 trillion yuan in 2010 to 92 trillion by 2020, using the rule of 72.
Since, from 2010-2014, the growth rate was near double digits, all China needs now is 6.5per cent, to achieve its target by 2020.
The slowdown was designed to address overcapacity woes, especially in the steel industry. China produces about 750 million tons, more steel than the US, EU, Japan combined. This slowdown had an untended consequence for Australia and the iron ore mining industry.
The price of Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) fell from a high of US$150 per ton FOB in 2010 to US$39 in 2014, to the distress of the 3 giant iron ore miners: BHP-Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale (Brazil).
WA’s fiscal woes escalated as a substantial part of its tax revenues is derived from the mining sector.
But there is a light in the tunnel. So far the DSO price has risen to about US$60 a ton FOB, showing that China’s economy is not really in a free fall at all. The forecast GDP growth for 2016 is 6.8per cent.
2 There is an old saying in China that goes, “内无法家拂士 外无敌国外患者 国恒亡”.
This is, arguably, the Chinese version of “Wag the dog’, where Bill Clinton started a few bombings to divert his philandering kerfuffle with Monica Lewinsky. There was a three-day bombing campaign in Iraq, when the House debated articles of impeachment against him plus missile strikes in the Sudan, Afghanistan and Serbia.
The US extols ‘Human Rights’ as a policy but in reality Uncle Sam does not respect human rights at all. The US will kill anyone to achieve its aims.
3 “CCP chose to escalate confrontation with Southeast Asian claimants over the SCS dispute.’
Not true. China is the last to reclaim and build infrastructures in the Spratly islands (which were already returned by Japan to China, in 1952 under the Treaty of Peace), far behind Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, which are occupying Chinese territories in the SCS.
Marcos annexed 8 features in 1978, using presidential decree 1596. To claim the Second Thomas Shoal the Philippines grounded an old warship on it.
4 “Did CCP want to go into confrontation with US at the beginning? I don’t think so.”
I agree because China is the biggest beneficiary of the peace in the Asia Pacific in the last 38 years. In 1978 China was a basket case until the indomitable Deng Xiaoping declared that “ it is not the color of the cat that counts anymore but whether it can catch mice” and “To be rich is glorious.” The communist manifesto was thrown out of the window and China adopted ‘Meritocracy’, with a Socialist bent.
Now China has the 2nd largest economy and is the largest trading nation on Earth. Why rock the boat?
5 “At the time when CCP started to build up the fake islands, US was embroiled in the Middle East over ISIS, etc..”
Not true. China started to reclaim its own territories in the SCS, in response to the Philippines talking the disputes to the Hague in 2013.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-05/25/content_25467910.htm
6 “ but alas, the CCP underestimated the vigilance of US government ,,”
Not true. Uncle Sam is the puppeteer behind the screen to direct the Philippines’ call for arbitration.
7 “Therefore, I don’t think the Chinese government will be the instigator should a military conflict happen in Asia., etc “
I agree.
8 “However, under Xi administration, the Chinese government also won’t back down if this is what the US government is trying to achieve.”
I agree. The US is playing with fire.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/09/stop-playing-with-fire-in-the-south-china-sea/
9 “Part of me suspects that the US may want to bring chaos and turmoil in Asia as they did in the Middle East.., that the US, in order to protect its global hegemony, will go so far as to start a limited WW3.”
Uncle Sam will use Japan as the stooge or ’bad guy’ to start ww3, which is MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction.) There is no winner when a Nuclear Winter sets in after 12,000 nuclear bombs explode around the world in a final orgy of human madness.
10” I am terrified by this possibility and the ascension of either Hillary (a Hawk) or Trump (a lunatic) to POTUS..”
Rest assured, you are not alone.