China #2

The analysis by C Killian is in remarkable contrast to the Stanford link from NorthReport which seems a remarkable steaming pile of psychological animal droppings. Let's have more poltiical economic analysis and less "Kremlin watching" style blather (or explaining current Chinese policy by references to "hurt feelings" over the 19th century Opium Wars, HTFG!).

This appears to be the most informative article about the reasons for the territorial dispute off China's Coast 

The 2009 claims that changed dynamics in the S. China Sea

http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/the-2009-claims-that-changed-dynamic...

Escobar summarizes:

Pepe Escobar wrote:

BREAKING NEWS: THE PHILIPPINES "WIN" - BUT IT'S WAY MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT.

The U.N.-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that there is no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to PARTS of the South China Sea encompassed by China’s “nine-dash line.”

The court said China’s historic rights were extinguished with its ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The court also found that none of the Spratly islands are capable of sustaining human habitation in a natural state and thus do not qualify for exclusive economic zones (EEZs). The court said that habitation means a “stable community of people.”

The court also ruled that Taiwan-controlled Itu Aba, the largest and most developed of the disputed high-tide land features in the Spratly archipelago, is likewise only a rock and not entitled to an EEZ.

China, as we all know, rejected the whole thing. The Philippine government said it welcomed the ruling but urged restraint.

and finally ...

Quote:

In the end, Beijing and Manila WILL talk. That's the Asian way. The question is under what framework.

Which is pretty well what he's said all along.

Perhaps the most "entertaining" aspect of the US case is their insistence that China should respect the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The US itself has never ratified that Convention. Rules are for countries other than the Empire.

US Hegemony is the goal.

The predatory National Interest suggests that the Empire do more than simply "shamefacing" the Chinese government. "Sailing around the South China sea is not an option", they say.  

Quote:

Beijing’s new islands and equipment are permanent; while America’s naval excursions are temporary, the vessels destined to float away.

It's not all that difficult to read the hubris of the Empire in the piece, a presumption of US global rule (forever), and a voyeuristic love and affection for war. But in the beltway in and around Washington, they never have to fight the wars they start ...

For the US, Sailing Around the South China Sea Is Not Strategy

So-called intelligence experts seem to be fond of borrowing from US propaganda films for military ideas and concepts. A photo lifted from the movies gets used to claim the death of some "evil doer". Life imitates art.

Hence we have ... Judgement Day.

Maybe Arnold will dress up as the Terminator and give those "dastardly" Chinese a lesson...

Yet another Yanqui imperialist running dog speaks his China-bashing drivel:

Let's all remember now that if you oppose China in any way, that makes you a fascist Yanqui. It's black and white.

Quote:

Then there is the Arctic Ocean, where China has – so far – respected the fishing and continental shelf rights of the five coastal states. But if China rejects the application of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in Asia, can any country rely on it respecting those same promises in the Arctic?

Finally, there is the most important treaty of all: the UN Charter, and its prohibition on the use of force. Russia violated that rule in annexing Crimea. Will China now annex the sparsely populated, resource-rich Russian Far East?

I do not want to be alarmist. The Chinese government understands the importance of long-term relationships of trust and respect. But it will be angry about the judgment on the South China Sea. It will also feel vulnerable domestically, having stoked nationalist sentiments on this issue.

China is at a turning point. Its response to the judgment of the Permanent Court could determine whether it is a partner or pariah state. Should it choose badly, the world will become a less prosperous, more dangerous place.

Mop and Pail wrote:

Then there is the Arctic Ocean, where China has – so far – respected the fishing and continental shelf rights of the five coastal states. But if China rejects the application of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in Asia, can any country rely on it respecting those same promises in the Arctic?

bwa ha ha ha. What an example! Russia, for example, supports Canada in protecting what it views as an inland waterway, through Arctic waters. For Canada, it's the NorthWest Passage, for Russia it's the NorthEast Passage, although they call it something else.

Guess what stinking Empire opposes both? BZZZZ! Wrong! Not China. The USA. oh yeah.

Some friend of Canada those shit bag Yanquis are. You're batting O of 1 so far.

Mop and Pail wrote:

Finally, there is the most important treaty of all: the UN Charter, and its prohibition on the use of force. Russia violated that rule in annexing Crimea. Will China now annex the sparsely populated, resource-rich Russian Far East?

BZZZZ! 0 for 2! Why not show us some evidence of the "Russian invasion" so blathered about? A date that this event happened, perhaps? aha ha ha ah. You will be looking a long time. There is no such evidence. The people of Crimea, freely, rejected the murderous Kiev regime and its dreams of ethnic cleansing by about 95-98%. Too fukcing bad, huh?

Russian MSM commentators, e.g., Peter Lavelle of Crosstalk, has had an enormous amount of fun asking the same question for the last year or so. Where's the beef?

Here's the thing. You can't regurgitate the missives of NATO (e.g., that Russia is "the enemy", that China is "the yellow peril" or such such 19th century racism dressed up as "domino theory") today, without exposing yourself to the very sensible view that you're simply parrotting the views of the Empire. E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E is required. Good luck with that.

Mop and Pail wrote:

I do not want to be alarmist. The Chinese government understands the importance of long-term relationships of trust and respect. But it will be angry about the judgment on the South China Sea. It will also feel vulnerable domestically, having stoked nationalist sentiments on this issue.

China is at a turning point. Its response to the judgment of the Permanent Court could determine whether it is a partner or pariah state. Should it choose badly, the world will become a less prosperous, more dangerous place.

Translation: obey the Empire. Even if the US does not respect the UNCLOS, everyone else must. Because freedom.

I really thought you were better than this. C'mon, this is too easy.

No one likes a bully!

South China Sea: Court rules in favor of Philippines over China

Viewed as a decisive win for the Philippines, the ruling could heighten friction in a region already bristling with tension, especially if it unleashes a defiant reaction from China.The United States, which has been at odds with China over freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, urged all parties "to avoid provocative statements and actions."

Other countries could be emboldened

The ruling doesn't just affect China and the Philippines, but other countries that have competing claims with the nation over large areas of the sea.Chinese ship 'shadows' U.S. carrier

Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia have also taken exception to China's growing presence in the region and could now be emboldened to take further action."If China's nine-dash line is invalid as to the Philippines, it is equally invalid to those States and, indeed, the rest of the international community," the lawyers who led the Philippines' legal team said in a statement. Vietnam, which like China claims the Paracel and Spratly islands, strongly supports Tuesday's ruling, the country's foreign affairs ministry said. The Spratlys in particular are heavily contested, with China, Taiwan and Vietnam claiming all of them, and parts claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei."Vietnam strongly supports the resolution of the disputes ... by peaceful means, including diplomatic and legal processes and refraining from the use or threats to use force, in accordance with international law," ministry representative Le Hai Bình said.

Japan, a key U.S. ally and China's neighbor, issued a statement saying it "strongly expects that the parties' compliance with this ruling will eventually lead to the peaceful settlement of disputes in the South China Sea."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/asia/china-philippines-south-china-sea/

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Chexit&src=typd

These clowns sound like the religious kooks in the USA. They deserve each other.

Beijing engineers coverage of South China Sea ruling

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36774489

ikosmos wrote:

Does the US expect China to "comply with their obligations" when they themselves neither acknowledge the authority of the Convention on the Law of the Sea nor have bothered to ratify it? Why should China obey "laws" that the US thumbs its nose at?

More idealizing on my part: Freedom of navigation operations in the SCS/WPS should continue, but using civilian vessels with heavy multilateral (UNCLOS ratifiers only) and zero US involvement. I know people will say it will never happen, and I'll sadly agree 99% with that.

Yet another aspirational ideal of mine with scant hope of coming to fruition: posters such as ikosmos would take the toxicity out of his/her posts, making them more effective.

Seems like a lot of fuss about not much. If I have it right the decision said that both the Chinese and Taiwanese claims do not hold up but it also did not say who if anyone has a more valid claim. It would seem that this decision merely leads the parties back to the negotiating table.  As for the freedom of navigation issue could someone please post the links to the stories of the Chinese navy preventing shipping from going through the area, I can't seem to find them.

Beijing blames Philippines for South China Sea trouble

China rejects South China Sea tribunal ruling and says it has right to set up air defence zone if threatened.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/beijing-blames-philippines-south-c...

ilha formosa wrote:

ikosmos wrote:

Does the US expect China to "comply with their obligations" when they themselves neither acknowledge the authority of the Convention on the Law of the Sea nor have bothered to ratify it? Why should China obey "laws" that the US thumbs its nose at?

More idealizing on my part: Freedom of navigation operations in the SCS/WPS should continue, but using civilian vessels with heavy multilateral (UNCLOS ratifiers only) and zero US involvement. I know people will say it will never happen, and I'll sadly agree 99% with that.

Yet another aspirational ideal of mine with scant hope of coming to fruition: posters such as ikosmos would take the toxicity out of his/her posts, making them more effective.

If you're idealizing on International Relations, then maybe the perspective is the problem. The relations between states like the US and China are in a completely different class than that of smaller states.

The very bad example that the US sets, as the dominant global hegemon (e.g., the US is fine with terrorism when it harms others like China and Russia and Syria, etc. but expects everyone to jump and say "Yes Sir!" when terrorism visits their shores, etc,) has the effect of disorganizing international relations and makes "law governed" arrangements impossible.

P. Escobar even uses the term, "Empire of Chaos" in a recent book to describe the net effect of the US in the International arena. They create chaos, rather deliberately, keeping tensions ratcheted up, which serves foreign policy interests of continued US dominance.

If we were to ask ourselves what legitimate interests the US has in the South China Sea, what would we say? Navigation. That's it. As babbler Kropotkin noted above, rather sarcastically, he could not seem to find the links showing how China is interfering with shipping in the area.

I'm afraid the best arguments, IMHO, is what Escobar, and others, have been saying. Right now we live in a world in which one country, for the time being, dominates global political economy, military, and social life generally. That country is unwilling to accept that their role is changing, that hegemony does not last forever, and seems rather, instead, determined to keep that role using any and every means - up to and including rushing to the precipice of war with other nuclear powers - to the last possible second.

This is a recipie for disaster and it distracts humanity from shared problems we need to work on.

About toxic posts - I admit that I have a very polemical style. What can I say? Sometimes I fight dirty.

Yes, very good article. All points in the "Theories on China's Actions" section are contributing factors; there are a lot of benefits - positive entries to the ledger - that may make the PRC willing to incur the international reputation costs. I think resource development could be done jointly, but what is critical is that maintaining military bases in the SCS cannot be done jointly. From the list I think this point best explains the level of assertiveness:

Quote:

A third vein of theorising points to Beijing's aspiration to punch a hole through the US' and its allies' geopolitical encirclement of mainland China by establishing a foothold in the South China Sea, which is characterised either as a weak link in the US' containment of China or as the soft underbelly of China's own defences that needs bolstering by the creation of forward positions in the South China Sea.

What applies to the US would also apply to "any potential adversary."

China has always had the Gobi, the Himalayas, and dense jungle on its peripheries. The ocean was once a buffer too, but naval technology has changed that.

Not explicitly pointed out on the list is the fact that the PRC's "salami-slicing" is moving towards encompassing Taiwan. Control of Scarborough Shoal would give the PLA Navy another angle on the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and Luzon. The ADIZ over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is the preliminary northern arm of a pincer on Taiwan that is now forming bit by bit.

Daniel Schaeffer “Why China Wants the South China Sea For Itself Alone”

China may dispute the verdict but it is a huge setback for them

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/13/china-may-dispute-south-ch...

Edited to add: one aspect about the legal case bears closer examination. This was asked, and answered, in the Sputnik USA program hosted by Brian Becker (link upthread for this very, very good show) the day before the ruling came down. 

Quote:

Why did the Philipines agree to bilaternal talks and then ask for international adjudication?

The answer lies in the US State Department. The Philipines has been a very "cooperative" client of the USA.

So "cooperative" in fact, that the entire Filipino legal team in the case had zero Filipinos. Remarkable cooperation indeed.

It's important because bilateral talks are precisely what will happen now. Presumably, US thinking may go, Duterte will have more "leverage" to get a better deal for the Republic of the Philippines. Of course the geo-strategic thinking at the State Department goes beyond any success in bilateral bargaining among Asian countries. Naval vessels, armed to the teeth and cheek by jowl with rival Chinese ships, is a great way to stoke tensions, set up scenarios for war, plumps up military spending, and provides a pretext for the US Navy to move 60% of their assets to ... the Western Pacific. Which they were planning to do anyway.

NorthReport wrote:

The US appears to be moving a lot more of the Navy to the Pacific specifically because of China's bullying tactics with its smaller neighbours. 

Who is that you're quoting? Time Magazine? Foreign Policy? The State Department? I prefer alternative media sources. You know. Like rabble. ca.

Adam Hudson, Truthout wrote:

... the United States is deeply immersed in a regional chess-game against China’s rising power: The US is expanding its ongoing military presence in the Asia-Pacific, at the expense of national sovereignty, local democracy, human rights and the environment....

Hudson is very critical of China's role here, but is sober-minded enough not to drink the US Koolaid:

Peter Lee wrote:

... as I’ve argued frequently, US planners see “heightened tensions” as a vital driver/competitive advantage for the military-heavy US agenda in Asia and a bulwark against Asian nations wasting their energies by doing something stupid like focusing on regional economic integration and a security architecture that includes China instead of confronting it…

…with the assumption that the costs of any miscalculation will be borne by Asia, and not the US homeland.

Your pivot at work, ladies and gentlemen. Soon to be nuclear.

He's refering to Obama's "Pivot to Asia" from 2011. Excluding China from the TPP, militarizing their links to the states that are part of it, stoking conflict, it's all part of the Empire's agenda. Notice how "wasting their energies" includes, in the barbarous US view, Asian countries working together (i.e., not subservient to the Empire) with China.

So what I've been saying, now substantiated by an least one expert in the field, is that the brutal, monstrous war criminal US regime PLANS on and ACTIVELY STOKES HEIGHTENED TENSIONS since it is an area, with their bloated military spending, they still retain a competitive advantage. Bankrupting other countries (like the Soviets in the Reagan era) into excessive military spending is ... the American way. "Fuck the global problems. Profits are what matter," says Uncle Sam. And profits from military spending are ... through the roof. "Happy days are here again!"

And, as the author says, any serious conflict will be borne by Asians, which the US could give 2 shits about anyway ...

US Pivot to Asia Poised to Enter Nuclear Phase

ilha formosa wrote:

The CCP would be in a much better position now internationally and domestically had it stayed on the track of joint resource development in the SCS instead of trying to claim it all. But it over-reached, most blatantly shown by the oil rig incident with Vietnam and the seizure of Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines.

Who asked the PRC to overreach? The profit-minded US military-industrial complex?

That would be a good premise for a bad novel, but I think the situation now is more a matter of groups of knuckledraggers on either side with far too much power, now feeding a self-reinforcing downward spiral.

As you undoubtedly know very well, China is late to this game. All the other countries (Viet Nam, Republic of the Philippines, Malaysia, etc.) have been doing what China is now doing. That, in a nutshell, is the problem - from the Empire' s point of view. They simply want to EXCLUDE China from such activity. 

They failed. As babbler kropotkin noted, wake us up when China interferes with navigation, or trade between the US regime and is client states, through the Strait of Malacca.

We all know very well that it is the US, and not China, that has well thought out plans for that sort of thing.  You can find official US military doctrine, or read their sabre-rattling missives from NATO, etc. easily enough. China, by developing resources, late to the game or not, is making efforts to ensure energy self-sufficiency in the face of a juggernaut that will threaten any and every state that is a potential rival (at any level - economic, military, political). 

Supplemental: Crosstalk may do a show on the recent ruling but with all the events today (terrorism in Nice, France; Kerry in Moscow with Lavrov; Turkish coup d'etat) they seem a bit lost, overwhelmed even, and I would hope and/or expect the show to be next week sometime.

Andrew Korybko, analyst with SputnikUSA, has written a recent book about Hybrid Warfare (that even NATO authors quote - despite the deep criticism of NATO in his book) and has a section here on hybrid warfare against the ASEAN countries.

It's a long read, so I will edit this post to make a few notes.

- First of all, a cursory look suggests that it is not only China that is aimed at (China Containment Coalition) but also the very client states in that Coalition. The US works by some pretty brutal arm-twisting of its "allies".

- includes a detailed investigation of the socio-political vulnerabilities inherent in some of the ASEAN states

- includes:

The Philipines: Bangsamoro basics,  the Mindanao conflict, Mindanao militants and their interplay, etc. ;

Malaysia: historical backgrounder, post independence, Filipino fracas;

etc. Good historical survey of relevant information ...

Hybrid Wars 6 - Trick to Containing China

.....................................

There's really an enormous amount of reading here.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/what-china-s-actions-in-the-...

China's Response to the South China Sea Arbitration Ruling

Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai at think-tank CSIS in Washington, D.C.

~ 40 minutes.

NorthReport wrote:

But so far, the award has not catalyzed the kind of organized mass protests that occurred during previous conflicts with the U.S. and Japan. Since such demonstrations in China cannot take place without the consent of local authorities, it appears that Beijing doesn’t want negative public opinion to spill out onto the streets.

Like anywhere, control over the domestic "audience" is important in China. The CCP needs room to back out without appearing to China's citizens that it has over-reached, or that it's being pushed back.

Exclusive: Top Obama aide to take call for South China Sea calm to Beijing

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-usa-exclusive-idUSKCN10210Z

ASEAN meets and ...

P. Escobar wrote:

...at a summit in Vientiane, Laos, the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China finally settled for that household mantra - “defusing tensions”.

They agreed to stop sending people to currently uninhabited “islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features” after ASEAN declared itself worried about land reclamation and “escalations of activities in the area”.

And all this without even naming China - or referring to the ruling in The Hague.

China and ASEAN also pledged to respect freedom of navigation in the South China Sea (which Washington insists is in danger); solve territorial disputes peacefully, through negotiations (that happens to be the official Chinese position), also taking into consideration the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); and work hard to come up with a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (that’s been going on for years; optimistically, a binding text will be ready by the first half of 2017).

So, problem solved? Not really. At first, it was Deadlock City. Things only started moving when the Philippines desisted to mention The Hague in the final statement; Cambodia – allied with China – had prevented it from the start.

And that’s the heart of the matter when it comes to ASEAN negotiating with China. It’s a Sisyphean task to reach consensus among the 10 members – even as ASEAN spins its role as the perfect negotiation conduit. China for its part prefers bilaterals – and has applied Divide and Rule to get what it wants, seducing mostly Laos and Cambodia as allies.

Escobar goes over some history, US ongoing hegemonic plans, etc., and concludes:

Quote:

But make no mistake; at some point in the future, there will be a serious confrontation between the US and China over “access" to the South China Sea.

Pepe Escobar: Is war inevitable in the South China Sea?