[Goober911]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Goober911 Goober911:

China want to have layers of protection for the US Navy, in particular Carriers. Each layer broken raises the cost of doing so. I think the term is area denial.
In when the S 7nth Fleet sailed the Straights of Taiwan, this was extremely humiliating for China.
Many think all those missiles on the Chinese side of the Straight are for Taiwan. They are there to deny access.

And in my opinion War is coming between China and the US. Within the next 5 to 10 years.

It may work temporarily for sea denial, but the US lead in tech makes me think it wouldn't last long. In the event of a real conflict between the two, all the US needs to do is place some subs nearby and smash PLA missile bases with Tomahawks. In a worst case, they might need to use air strikes.

I doubt China would go to war with the US unless; a) the US reneged on their debt to China or, b) the US economy declined enough that China wasn't dependent on them for their own economic well-being or, c) the US recognized Taiwan.

This will be a quick start, he who strikes first has the advantage.
look at comms. disruption, power plants on overload & cascading causing massive damage that takes years to repair. Imagine the US West coast with no power. Complete mayhem

[Jabberwalker]

They could probably do all of that with hackers.

[Goober911]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

They could probably do all of that with hackers.

They can, Homeland Security had a program to assist companies in protecting their plants. Since defunded.
FFn dumb move.
Look at the issues they had recently with one code error that was there for years.
The US paid big bucks for, forget the hackers term , o codes or something?? to use in the Stuxnet.
I am sure they have them inside Chinese computers.
Same as China has.
1st strike wins the war.
And it is coming. I hope I am wrong but so far that is what I see.

[Jabberwalker]

You may be right. I take comfort in all of the sophisticated, capable nations in the region that rings China ... Japan, ROK, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Australia, Philippines, US, .... something akin to our Atlantic Alliance needs a scare to bring them all together.

[Goober911]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

You may be right. I take comfort in all of the sophisticated, capable nations in the region that rings China ... Japan, ROK, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Australia, Philippines, US, .... something akin to our Atlantic Alliance needs a scare to bring them all together.

They should incorporate SEATO/ASEAN into NATO. With an Article 5 as NATO has.
We are in the midst of rising power blocs.
China has to be brought peacefully to the world, respect for international law.
But I fear they will not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_sta ... ber_states

http://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/seato

[Goober911]

I subscribe so the link will not open
Foreign Policy Mag
9 May 14

As China and Vietnam enter the second week of their tense naval standoff in the South China Sea, three questions loom large: What is China trying to achieve, could this turn into a shooting war between the two historical enemies, and what does this all mean for the U.S. pivot to Asia?

The short answers: China watchers are puzzled by Beijing's aggressive behavior, which seems both a departure from its previous approach to regional relations and potentially counterproductive; no guns have yet been drawn, but this could quickly turn violent; and U.S. desire to maintain influence in the region could hinge on how it handles a dispute between two communist countries -- and on whether neighboring nations believe Washington is willing to go to the mat to stand up to a rising China.

China's dispatch of a huge, billion-dollar offshore oil rig to waters claimed by both Beijing and Hanoi sparked the biggest conflict in years between the two countries. Over the weekend, Vietnamese officials said, Chinese ships sent to escort the oil rig rammed and fired water cannons at Vietnamese coast guard vessels sent to investigate. Tensions remain at a fever pitch, with Chinese officials claiming Friday, May 9, that Vietnamese ships and frogmen are interfering with the oil rig's operations, though no further naval clashes have been confirmed.

The clash, the most serious since a similar showdown between China and Vietnam in 2007, has zoomed to the top of the agenda for the summit this weekend of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which in turn has infuriated Beijing. China doesn't want any international groupings to discuss the maritime disputes, which it prefers to settle on a bilateral basis.

The Philippines, which has its own fresh dispute with China this week after Philippine Coast Guard officials arrested someone they said was an illegal Chinese fisherman, will seek to put maritime disputes at the heart of the ASEAN confab and seek progress on a code of conduct that could give countries a peaceful way to resolve territorial disputes. In response, Chinese state-controlled media attacked the Philippines for trying to "instigate tension" in the region by promising to bring up maritime disputes at the annual ASEAN summit.

The real bad guy, in Chinese eyes, isn't the Philippines or Vietnam, however. Instead, Beijing says that the United States, by pursuing its pivot to Asia, has emboldened countries in the region to take an unnecessarily tougher and more provocative stance toward China than they had in recent years.

"It must be pointed out that the recent series of irresponsible and wrong comments from the United States, which neglect the facts about the relevant waters, have encouraged certain countries' dangerous and provocative behavior," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said at a regular briefing Friday, Reuters reported.

China was responding to tough talk from the U.S. State Department in the wake of news that the two countries had actually clashed over the oil rig's deployment. On Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki stated that China's aggressive approach to advancing its claims over a broad stretch of the South China Sea "undermines peace and stability in the region."

On Thursday, after Chinese officials alleged that Vietnamese ships had attacked their vessels more than 170 times, Psaki reiterated that the United States sees China as the bad actor in this particular drama. "We think it's the Chinese side that is exhibiting provocative actions here," she said.

She repeated the U.S. position at a briefing on Friday, saying that though the United States takes no position on the sovereignty dispute "any time there are provocative or unhelpful actions taken that put the maintenance of peace and stability at risk, I think that's something that any country has the right to have concerns about."

For a nation that spent 30 years reassuring neighbors that it sought a "peaceful rise" in both economic and military power, China's bold move to dispatch an oil rig to waters inside Vietnam's exclusive economic zone, and then defend it with about 80 coast guard and naval vessels, raises serious questions. Here's a good one with which to start: Just what is China thinking?

"Something fundamental is taking place in China's foreign-policy behavior," said David Lai, a China expert at the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College. "The Chinese are changing from a 'low profile, avoid showdowns' approach to one that is more proactive."

Lai has spent years teaching U.S. defense officials to understand Chinese strategy through the board game of wei qi, also known as Go in the West. He says China's dispatch of the oil rig to disputed waters, which is hard to justify on commercial, oil-extraction grounds, makes more sense if understood in terms of the stones, or pieces, that are strategically placed on a wei qi board.

"When you put facts on the ground, it's like you put a stone there, and that stone has impact. The game is all about position-based power," he said, drawing parallels between the seemingly immovable oil rig and Chinese designs in the South China Sea.

Other China experts chalk up Beijing's aggressive behavior to concerns among the ruling Communist Party's senior leadership that one of the main pillars of its legitimacy and popular support -- the country's roaring economy -- could be wobbling amid signs of slowing growth and a potentially devastating real estate bubble.

"Domestic political stability is probably the single most important interest that the Chinese are pursuing with their regional maritime strategy," said Peter Dutton, the head of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College.

He sees parallels with the way that China fanned the flames of nationalism and anti-Japanese sentiment during a 2012 dispute over the Senkaku Islands. "It was an opportunity to create domestic political space by dangling the bright, shiny object of nationalism off to the side and changing the focus of the conversation," Dutton said.

The big question is whether the brinkmanship around the oil rig is mere posturing or has the potential to turn into something far more serious. There are a couple of reasons to worry: Vietnam, unlike the Philippines and Japan, has no formal defense agreement with the United States, which means Beijing doesn't have to worry about Washington being obliged to ride to Hanoi's rescue. At the same time, Vietnam and China have fought each other, on and off, for centuries.

More recently, Vietnam and China fought a major land war in 1979; they clashed over Chinese occupation of the Paracel Islands, where the rig is, in 1974; and they collided in a deadly spat over disputed territories in the late 1980s that left scores of Vietnamese dead.

And while U.S. President Barack Obama made a point of reaffirming formal defense ties with Tokyo and Manila during his recent, four-country Asian tour, Vietnam has no such agreement with the United States. Until recently, in fact, many observers feared that U.S. defense obligations to Japan could suck the United States into a conflict with China because those obligations extend to the disputed Senkaku Islands claimed by both countries. Lately, however, China has made moves to lower the tension with Japan over those islands with diplomatic missions to Tokyo and fewer naval and air patrols of the disputed islands.

Could the naval skirmish between China and Vietnam move beyond water cannons to live fire?

"I think so," said M. Taylor Fravel, an expert on Asian maritime disputes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I'm not at all worried by shots being fired between China and the Philippines. But the Vietnamese have a different set of capabilities and they have a different history with China."

Given Vietnam's desire to keep China from tapping what it sees as its national oil and gas wealth, and given the close proximity of so many ships, the jostling could "conceivably escalate to the use of armed force," Fravel said.

Dutton, meanwhile, says the combination of Vietnam's vulnerability and China's apparent belief that its vital national interests are at play in the oil dispute means that shots could soon be fired.

"It would seem to me that conflict is something that we all have to consider as a very real possibility," he said.

How does this affect the United States? In Japan, Obama went out of his way to stress that U.S. security guarantees extend to the Senkaku Islands, perhaps to forestall the kind of ambiguity that led to the 1950 invasion of South Korea, when U.S. officials intimated that Seoul was not covered by the U.S. security blanket.

But in the South China Sea, the United States has no defense accord or alliance with Vietnam, and it takes no position on which country actually owns the collection of islands in the Paracel chain, which form the basis for China's insistence that its oil rig is operating lawfully. Washington has simply stressed, as it has for years, that it wants to preserve freedom of navigation in the area and that it urges states to use peaceful means to resolve disputes. Notably, Tokyo and Washington backed the Philippines' decision to take China to court over their islands dispute.

Still, just because Washington doesn't want to become directly involved in the South China Sea doesn't mean it can avoid it.

"This is a real challenge for the United States. One of the objectives in the region is to reassure allies, partners, and friends. And if we don't get involved, then reassuring allies, partners, and friends is called into question," Dutton of the Naval War College said.

[Public_Domain]

[Goober911]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

$1:

And in my opinion War is coming between China and the US. Within the next 5 to 10 years.

I think it'll happen in about 63 years.

China is changing. The new President, has consolidated power. The use of angry mobs, against Japanese factories, is one thing that can easily go awry.

The President has given direction that the Military will prepare for War.
Prominent Military Generals have publicly stated the same.
China has a limited window to achieve territorial gains.
China will be grey before they are rich.
South China Sea is one
Spratly Island chain is another.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13748349

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26062033

Each states they do not want it, and each is diligently preparing.

[bootlegga]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

You may be right. I take comfort in all of the sophisticated, capable nations in the region that rings China ... Japan, ROK, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Australia, Philippines, US, .... something akin to our Atlantic Alliance needs a scare to bring them all together.

Sounds like you may have read this recently;

Editorial: If there’s an Asian NATO, Canada must join

$1:

With Crimea long gone and the threat of further Russian intervention hanging over its eastern regions, the integrity of Ukraine lies in doubt. Yet one thing seems certain. Had Ukraine joined NATO in 2008, as was once discussed, the situation would be vastly different.

Whatever designs Russian President Vladimir Putin may have on the remainder of Ukraine, the mutual defence obligations of NATO have stymied any plans he may harbour for reassembling the rest of the Soviet Empire. NATO has significantly enhanced the West’s military presence in member countries Poland, Romania and the Baltic states (including six CF-18s from Canada) and put a hard line around further Russian predations. Given NATO’s effectiveness over the past 65 years in this regard, some politicians in Asia are now calling for a similar organization to contain China’s rising global ambitions as well. An Asian equivalent of NATO may be years away, but it’s a possibility Canada should not ignore.

While China repeatedly argues it has no desire for an empire or the territory of other countries, recent actions renders these declarations doubtful. Tension between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands (known to China as Diaoyu) in the East China Sea has produced the most dramatic confrontations between these two countries since the Second World War, with several tense maritime standoffs. China recently claimed air rights in this area as well. And it asserts ownership over nearly all the South China Sea, despite competing claims from Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines.

To back up its aggressive territorial claims, China boasts a navy that now rivals the U.S. in the number of attack ships and submarines. While it may be a decade or two behind in technology, it’s rapidly catching up; last year it launched its first aircraft carrier. It has also been developing a series of potential naval bases, known as the “String of Pearls,” culminating in a newly built, Chinese-operated port at Gwadar, Pakistan, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. China could soon project a powerful military presence throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans and as far as the Middle East.

“China’s growing offshore military capabilities could eventually increase the likelihood of serious political-military crises in East Asia . . . and undermine overall regional stability,” a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace strategic net assessment concluded last year.

As a counterweight, Shigeru Ishiba, secretary-general of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said earlier this year, “It will become necessary for us to have an Asian version of NATO. We need a balance here in the region with China.” To this end, Japan’s Shinzo Abe government is trying to lift a constitutional ban that prevents the country’s military from fighting in defence of allies.

An Asian collective defence treaty makes considerable sense over the long term. An informal agreement between India, Japan, Australia and the U.S. already provides some military co-operation in the region. On his recent Asian tour, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a 10-year deal with the Philippines allowing the U.S. Navy to return to its former base in Subic Bay, countering recent Chinese hegemony. However, given the massive changes wrought by China’s ascendancy, a comprehensive treaty of Pacific-based democracies pledged to each other’s mutual defence—including South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore—would provide a much firmer bulwark.

There are significant hurdles to creating an Asian NATO, including a lack of solidarity amongst potential member nations. Japan and South Korea, for example, still mistrust each other almost as much as China. Even more important, there’s the ever-present fear of alienating China and losing out on trade.

Further, a lot of work must be done before an Asian NATO ever becomes a necessity. The true nature of China’s interests in building its navy and exercising control over the South and East China Seas is unknown. And it has yet to act in as deliberately an aggressive manner as Putin’s Russia. There’s still ample room for negotiation, diplomacy and the application of international law in sorting out Asia’s balance of power.

Nonetheless, if it comes to pass, Canada should be a willing and full partner in any Asia-Pacific Treaty Organization, befitting our status as a Pacific Rim nation. With our future economic success increasingly tied to Asian growth, it is in our interest to ensure political and military stability in the region, as well as the flourishing of democracies. Canada is doing its part in Europe right now. We should be ready to do the same in Asia.

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpo ... must-join/

[bootlegga]

Goober911 Goober911:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Goober911 Goober911:

China want to have layers of protection for the US Navy, in particular Carriers. Each layer broken raises the cost of doing so. I think the term is area denial.
In when the S 7nth Fleet sailed the Straights of Taiwan, this was extremely humiliating for China.
Many think all those missiles on the Chinese side of the Straight are for Taiwan. They are there to deny access.

And in my opinion War is coming between China and the US. Within the next 5 to 10 years.

It may work temporarily for sea denial, but the US lead in tech makes me think it wouldn't last long. In the event of a real conflict between the two, all the US needs to do is place some subs nearby and smash PLA missile bases with Tomahawks. In a worst case, they might need to use air strikes.

I doubt China would go to war with the US unless; a) the US reneged on their debt to China or, b) the US economy declined enough that China wasn't dependent on them for their own economic well-being or, c) the US recognized Taiwan.

This will be a quick start, he who strikes first has the advantage.
look at comms. disruption, power plants on overload & cascading causing massive damage that takes years to repair. Imagine the US West coast with no power. Complete mayhem

Even if something like that happened, the USN wouldn't be affected and could easily conduct offensive operations against the nation(s) that triggered the event.

But as long as the US is their biggest customer and China needs foreign investment/spending to maintain its growth, which it desperately does to try and quell the hundreds of millions who haven't yet enjoyed the Chinese economic miracle (i.e. everyone who doesn't live within 500 km of their Pacific coastline), they are unlikely to kill the golden goose that makes said economic growth possible.

[Jabberwalker]

Here is the latest ... push-back against the Chinese ...

http://news.ca.msn.com/world/factories- ... in-vietnam

[Goober911]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Here is the latest ... push-back against the Chinese ...

http://news.ca.msn.com/world/factories- ... in-vietnam

It means little to China. These are factories, Chinese that moved from the mainland due to rising labor costs in China.
A war is coming. And I hope I am wrong.
But I fear I am right. Wars when you look thru history started over singular events, not connected,but taken together lead to WW1.

[Jabberwalker]

There is always a danger of something like this running away out of control. As I said earlier, China is ringed by some potentially powerful and sophisticated countries around her. China has no allies in the region that I am aware of. They can bite off a little piece of Vietnam, a small bit of Indonesia, a sliver of the Philippines, islands from Japan but not all at once and not to hold for a long time, either. The Japanese could potentially kick the living crap out of China if they become sufficiently motivated. It has happened before and more than once in history..

[Goober911]

http://theaviationist.com/2013/01/04/tu-22-analysis/

[Jabberwalker]

I would think that removing a pre-stealth pterodactyl like a Tu-22 would be like shooting geese from a hollow by a Saskatchewan slough.