The flip side, of course, is if a nation tried to provoke China into armed conflict over the South China Sea.
For example - say India was concerned with China’s growing power, so tried to engineer a situation that would blow up on China. The reasoning would be if China gave in at South China Sea, then China would be weaker politically. If China fought, its diplomatic relations and the country itself could suffer. Therefore, nothing to lose, so provoke armed conflict. But China’s leadership is probably canny enough to see through such an obvious game.
Consider the US and Japan in World War 2.
After Japanese occupation of French Indochina, US cut vital exports of materials essential to Japan’s war effort. This wasn’t actually firing bullets at Japan, but Japan likely considered it effectively an act of war, considering what a blow it was to Japan’s war effort. It wasn’t too long before Japan’s “unprovoked” attack on Pearl Harbor.
There’s a whole line of historians that claim that US deliberately attempted to provoke Japan and Germany with nonmilitary actions. If Japan or Germany used military action, US could claim to be a victim, and would have far less war weariness to deal with.
So there’s the question of whether the South China Sea could be used similarly to provoke China, to its detriment. This scenario, not previously mentioned, is the most likely scenario resulting in SERIOUS armed conflict at South China Sea. Even if China’s leaders are aware of such manipulation, they might not be able to avoid it.
For example, India might provide funding via a European contracting company to support mass building of oil platforms in the South China Sea. India could make the claim that its funding was to improve development in the region, and to help India’s relations with other nations in the area. The fact that such funding came at the expense of conflicting claims in the South China Sea could be explained by any number of regions. At the same time, diplomatic incidents could be engineered to cause China to severely lose face. This would slash China’s perceived abilities in the region, and would practically demand serious Chinese response.
I do not, however, see any signs of this sort of thing happening just now. Of course, such things would NOT be particularly obvious even if it were going on (there wouldn’t be much point if it WERE obvious).
So maybe it could happen! Or, China might plant evidence to indicate that such manipulation were going on, and claim sovereignity over the South China Sea in retaliation!
Which brings me back to my FIRST point in the thread - maybe a couple weeks ago - if China REALLY wants something, it can probably GET it. Unless the other concerned nations ALSO really want something . . . it’s just a shoving match.
But at any rate, the sorts of things we’re seeing now are just the expected saber rattling that come of conflicting claims in the region. Perfectly natural, and no reason to think it would indicate serious armed conflict. It’s only the sort of thing that I put forth in this post that will REALLY be likely to push things to such a point, and those will be the sorts of things to watch out for, not just a few incidents of boats being boarded, spying, fishermen being harassed, military exercises &c.
China ought not to be talked about as if it was a monolithic entity. There are competing powers in China one of which is civilian the other is military and even in those camps are sub-camps. There once a decade leadership change occurs this year and there have been many political scandals recently. I suspect some of the Chinese bravado might be merely to take the domestic audience off local corruption news stories and instead beat the drums of patriotism.
I would like to see how China will explain their claim to territory well over 1000 miles from their own shore and only 20 miles from a neighboring countries shore.
If China refuses to abide by the laws of the sea, then it becomes a two way street.
China ought not to be talked about as if it was a monolithic entity.
A gun is a combination of distinct parts, without any of which the gun would not work. However, a gun is referred to as a single unit, for ease of convention.
Similarly for China. United States. Or, really, any political “entity”.
I actually quite agree with the quoted point, but in a very real sense, China IS a “monolithic entity” as well. There are not “the Chinese ambassador(s)”, but “the Chinese ambassador”. It’s not “an aggregation of disparate cultural and ethnic groups’ army”, it is the “Chinese army”. &c.
I would like to see how China will explain their claim to territory well over 1000 miles from their own shore and only 20 miles from a neighboring countries shore.
“I claim this land in the name of Spain!”
“I claim this land in the name of Britain!”
“I claim this land in the name of Portugal!”
(Native American - “How do you explain your claim to this land?”)
(babble of excited voices)
How does ANY territory EVER get claimed? It isn’t just humans, it’s basic right down to animals. You make an aggressive claim and tell others to keep the f* out. You might be working alone, you might be working as part of a group. It has nothing to do with “power”, but everything to do with the perception of power.
You make some reference to an idealistic international law. But what does that MEAN, really? A bunch of people got together and decided that they want to play by certain rules. That’s all. Now we have another bunch of people that got together that decided they don’t really like those rules. Now what? You want to say “so and so said so and so first”? Tell that to the Native Americans. It didn’t work particularly well for them.
How is it that someone that steals millions of dollars, or loses millions of dollars through criminal incompetence, in the process destroying thousands of lives, or tens of thousands, or even negatively impacts nations, knowingly performing these criminal actions over the course of years, repeatedly and deliberately, can be sentenced to less time in jail than some hot headed kid that does something stupid for a single night?
Certain things happen in certain ways for certain reasons. Instead of saying things SHOULD not happen or COULD not happen, it’s best to see what DOES happen, and reason accordingly.
If China refuses to abide by the laws of the sea, then it becomes a two way street.
According to China, it is the OTHER nations that are not “abiding by the law”.
That said, just exactly what are other nations going to do if China doesn’t play nice?
Remember back to WW2. Appeasement was not just some policy that some European powers just came up with on the spot to make Hitler happy. Action of that sort has a long history, and with good reason. It often works.
Well the Geneva convention better not apply if we end up at war with China…
They could just simply “surrender” and we wouldn’t have enough housing to keep them, the ability to feed them, or the ability to guard them.
At all.
And the only hope the western powers would actually have of winning, would involve biological warfare.
Well the Geneva convention better not apply if we end up at war with China… They could just simply “surrender” and we wouldn’t have enough housing to keep them, the ability to feed them, or the ability to guard them.
Not a problem. Let’s assume for fun that the U.S. and China are at war over the possession of a given territory – let’s say the port city of Shanghai – and let’s assume that the city is defended by a million Chinese troops. Now let’s say that a U.S. airborne division parachutes into the city, and that all the Chinese troops in the city respond by immediately surrendering (for whatever inexplicable reason they might have) to the 10,000 or so American soldiers. Yes, that would make them POWs, which means the American troops would be obliged to detain and care for them as such (after disarming them, of course). The fastest way to solve the problem would be for the White House to state that the U.S. had achieved its objective (annexing Shanghai) and to unilaterally declare that the war was over. At this point the Chinese POWs cease to be POWs and all the Americans have to do is to repatriate them to China, which would simply involve pointing to the road that leads out of the city and telling them to start walking until they cross the brand-new border between the United States Federal Territory of Shanghai and the People’s Republic of China. All of this could be done in just a few hours, which means that the U.S. airborne guys wouldn’t even need to share a single MRE ration pack with the Chinese troops.
And if the roles got reversed, you all know the Chinese army will not be sharing any MSG ration packs either.
US troops sharing MRE’s may be considered an act of biological warfare. Those things do insidious things to the digestive system!
I wonder what would happen if they deliberately surrendered something like 2 million troops (who knew the game), and then kept another million or two engaged in the conflict,
I guess the west starts learning better ways of keeping millions of soldiers underguard? Â I wonder what the ratio of guards to prisoners would be…
US troops sharing MRE’s may be considered an act of biological warfare.
Just imagine what would happen to the chinese soldiers, if they were subjected to translated American reality T.V.
US troops sharing MRE’s may be considered an act of biological warfare.
Just imagine what would happen to the chinese soldiers, if they were subjected to translated American reality T.V.
And if we subjected them to eating T.V. Dinners rather tham MREs while they were watching those shows.
Feed them what we feed our own kids, in a short period of time they would be too fat to fight!
There’s a certain amount of truth to that MrMalachiCrunch……, something so crazy it might work.
Feed them what we feed our own kids, in a short period of time they would be too fat to fight!
And in fact this would be somewhat in line with what the Geneva Conventions prescribe, since they require that POWs be given rations which do not fall below the allocation of food given to the troops who are detaining them. The Americans could even argue to visiting Red Cross inspectors, “Hey, we’re not only respecting the Geneva Conventions, we’re going above and beyond them. We’re not feeding the POWs the notoriously bad military rations that our own troops always complain about, we’re feeding them the much more tasty and nutrious food we give to our own beloved kids back home!”
Well the Geneva convention better not apply if we end up at war with China…
They could just simply “surrender” and we wouldn’t have enough housing to keep them, the ability to feed them, or the ability to guard them.
At all.
And the only hope the western powers would actually have of winning, would involve biological warfare.
I’d rather we lost then it came to that.
I’d rather we lost then it came to that.
I wouldn’t.
Advantage China so far…
Their neighborhood now has more millionares than ours.
Other countries may take China to WTO court over its dominance and manipulation of the rare earth metals market.
Indonesia has tripled the price of coal exported to China, to take advantage of their economic rise.
They may curtail exports more severely and utilize that coal for their own development.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-19/cheap-coal-is-dead-long-live-renewables-part-1-.html
The rising $/KWH electrical rate is slowing down growth in China and India.
Remember how energy resource aquisitions drove a lot of German and Japanese military planners in WWII?
No nation can sustain armed offensives when they lack energy/fuel.
I always wondered if the west likes the idea of a modern China, now dependent on the sea lanes. 30 years ago China had nukes and ICBMs, not many but enough. They also were pretty much immune to the affects of non-nuclear war with 90% of their population peasants living off the land. Now, a blockade of energy to China would affect their population and thus their internal politics.
