China rises:
As the Chinese government and the fast-modernizing naval branch of the People’s Liberation Army extend the nation’s maritime reach, uneasy neighbors are tracking Chinese vessels, including military and surveillance boats, fisheries law enforcement ships and fishing skiffs, and pushing back hard over anything deemed aggressive…
The growing confidence of the Chinese Navy is on open display. Here in the port of Qingdao, host to an impressive naval review in 2009, destroyers and a submarines are docked for public viewing at a seaside military museum that extols the navy’s might. At a coastal city farther north, Dalian, the navy has been rebuilding an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier, the Varyag, which is expected to be operational this year.
China warns:
China warned other countries to stay out of escalating disputes with its neighbors over the South China Sea, even as the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines pledged to support the country as it asserts its sovereignty in the potentially resource-rich waters.
China warned other countries to stay out of escalating disputes with its neighbors over the South China Sea, even as the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines pledged to support the country as it asserts its sovereignty in the potentially resource-rich waters.
Our Philippines allies provoke:
The Philippine Navy has removed markers in the West Philippine Sea that were placed by Chinese forces.
One was removed from the Reed Bank, which is now known as Recto Bank, one was taken from the Boxall Reef, while another from Douglas Bank.
The markers were placed by China without permission…
“Siyempre they are a superpower, they have more than 10 times our population, we do not want any hostility to break out. Perhaps the presence of our treaty partner, which is the United States of America, ensures that all of us will have freedom of navigation.”
Perhaps.
This is relatively risk free, from the Filipino perspective: They don’t have much of a navy to lose.
Children shouldn’t be allowed to play with matches. Especially near the magazine.
And, what presence might that be? They closed our bases at Angeles and Subic Bay and we got pushed back to Guam. They didn’t seem to want our help back in ’92, and our presence there wasn’t overly intrusive.
I realize their constitution forbids foreign basing in the PI, and that was the basis for closing Clark and Subic, but if they want help, then they need to consider what the help costs.
I WAS going to say (continuing on from my comments at Lex’s 10 June post “Purely Peaceful Purposes”) that it will be no savage irony if (when?) we are invited back by the Vietnamese and the Phillipeano Govts–but then realized that by the time that happens thanks to Obama we won’t have any Navy to speak of to send…and I only WISH I were exaggerating for the sense of humor’s sake..
But then it occurs to me that there are now 300 million Chinese in the “middle-class” and they have taking a liking to the finer things like Cognac, etc. Saaayy…….that Barbancourt franchise for Vietnam is chicken-feed by comparison…better order a Rosetta Stone disk for Mandarin Chinese…
Virgil,
Maybe yes, maybe no – http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/beijing-battling-protest-fires-on-all-fronts/story-e6frg6so-1226075255343 dictatorships always look strong from the outside – though it is worth keeping in mind it is often their internal brittleness that makes them prone to adventurism – they need a kind of bread and circuses that comes from conquest that they ultimately are unwilling or unable to provide at home).
Unless China has an airtight claim to any islands/land it wants–and my guess it doesn’t–then all it is going to take is one spat and other nations will start functionally treating it as a nation needing watching–public words perhaps notwithstanding.
China needs to understand that during the Cold War, even with a lot of cards against the U.S. relative to how “third-world” nations wanted to treat us (our alliances with recent colonial powers, natural first-world vs. third-world tensions, strong Soviet push for them to be at least neutral, desire of leading elites to be wary/leery of the social form of Jacksonian democracy that is the U.S., etc.)–despite all that, the U.S. still held, and holds, a large natural reservoir of good willa around the world. It does. Truly.
In contrast, how has that favorable thirld-world opinion the Soviet Union held in the 70s stood up over time? If the geopolitics were reversed, and Russia had America’s strength and America Russia’s, how would people then view Putin’s nation? I think we can all hazard a guess.
No, China needs to understand there is a tremendous difference between being a useful counterweight and from being universally loved. We aren’t universally loved–they never will be in current form. They should therefore tread a little more carefully. My guess is that the nations of the world would let China roll over the nations surrounding the South China Sea–and then would start figuring out how to contain such a land.
Or in other words, India is not stupid.
Some people want to be loved. Some people want to be respected.
Others are content to be feared.
Paging Mr. Machiavelli, paging Mr. Machiavelli …
Yes, but it has been said that men go to war not because of what they say, but because of what they fear.
Everyone should RUN–NOT WALK–to this site (MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis) to read an article entitled:”Wave of Violent Protests, Bombings Hits China; Expect
More Riots When China’s Credit Bubble Pops, Exposing Mountains of Fraud.” See@
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/06/wave-of-violent-protests-rioting.html
(h/t smalldeadanimals)
At which point, China will likely do what oligarchies and dictatorships have done throughout the ages. They attempt to redirect their populace’s anger by redirecting it to external enemies – which, if they don’t exist, will be manufactured. A navy adventuring about picking fights is a great way to do that.
VX, thanks for that.
How about a Barbancourt franchise in Singapore? Lunch at Raffles mmm. Forget China and it’s near abroad.
I would think the conclusion to be drawn from a visit to the site, above, is if the collapse happens, expect even MORE “adventurism” in order to focus Chinese minds on the “foreign devils” as opposed to internal economic/financial problems.
Given that we seem to have given certain guarantees to the Phillipines, consider that if you don’t want children to play with matches you shouldn’t give them any.
Not much new here. The Spratlys and Paracels have long been in contention by several countries – China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia. In the ’60s, the ChiComs often shot at our guys who strayed to close to the Islands. Think we did anything as a result? Nope, nothing of any substance. And we won’t this time either. (nor should we, I think.) Same old, same old.
BT
The linked Mish’s article above citing civil unrest in China reminds me of Pravda’s propaganda during the Cold War. They repeatedly reported the demise of the US because of civil unrest, including the Civil Rights and the anti-war movement. Fortunately history proved them wrong.
flit – china does have internal problems with inflation, commodity price increase, thousands of unoccupied apartments, toxic loans on the bank books that rival our fannie/freddie debacle, and hundreds of millions that want “better”. And want it now. 200-300 million will migrate from rural to urban in the next decade. And want cars, and TVs, and “stuff”. The Chinese will (if not already) be the world’s largest consumer of petroleum, the largest burner of coal, the largest energy user including nuclear. They don’t have it. Energy drives quality of life on this planet. They will need it, and in huge quantities over what they have now. They will get it. I’m betting before 2016 China will plant a drill rig on that bank and start a huge thumb nosing with a “wha you tink you gonna do now”?
Greater East Asia Prosperity Sphere round two.
You left of the “Co-” as I think China does as well. Like most rising countries looking outward, they are thinking solely of themselves and the rest can go hang.
Flit,
The problem of course is that unlike Pravda’s reporting the challenge is that almost no one can know the extent of Chinese civil unrest given all the efforts by local and national authorities to mask it (likely only somewhere among the Security Services are there a few higher ups who have a total, country-wide picture). Dictatorships are different from free societies in their capacity to hollow out in an all but invisible way…
The hope is that the global economic crisis drives the Chinese into adventures before they are ready to reap the rewards of their build-up and our draw down of forces.
David/
I recommend that you read “Chinese Shadows” (1978) by the Belgique journalist Simon Lays–an eye-witness account pre Nixon. for a super analysis of a closed society. Read the Amazon reviews..a bit pricy now–glad I bought the hard-cover when it first was published..
Virgil,
Thank you – our library has a copy and I shall begin reading it this afternoon. I realize the danger of extrapolating too much from cases I know well (I think the effort to use Soviet/Yugoslav forms of analysis when studying ethnic/sectarian conflict in Iraq and the Middle East could have been a disaster had it ran farther than Biden-blather) but I do suspect that the ruling class is right to be afraid if only because of the degree to which so many of them are complicit in a whole range of crimes – and such fear makes for very little honesty or effectiveness in the communications pipelines…
Well flit, Mich’s DOES have a vested interest in hyping the natives in that they sell gold & silver, but they ain’t the only ones that have been noting the riots in the hinterland.The economic/lifestyle divide between rural and urban China has never been greater, and while 300 million plus (larger than the pop of the US) of “conspicuous consumption” upwardly mobile is a lot that STILL leaves 1.3 billion living in rural poverty or in sweatshop dorms outside the maj cities ala S.Africa or the Arab emirates, which constitutes a huge potential base for the “revolution of rising expectations.” Vast corruption in Communist systems is legendary and China’s is well documented by Chinese driven abroad by political oppression. And, have you forgotten viewing the pics of China’s “empty cities” here? And you think reference to the real-estate bubble over there is all nothing but propaganda and wishful thinking? Please, flit, wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. All the overhead imagery and refugee reports nothing but the equivalent of cold-war Pravda? Do you really believe that?
Flit
I stand corrected. Report just out and China is now the world’s leading consumer of energy. Destination – West Philippine Sea – what a great spot for a CV shakedown cruise. I don’t think their neighbors see the Chinese Navy as a “global force for good”.
June 11, 2011
China Surpasses US In Energy Consumption
BP’s 2011 Statistical Review of World Energy is out and the biggest news: China has become the biggest world energy consumer.
BP, in its 60th annual Statistical Review of World Energy, said China accounted for 20.3 per cent of demand, compared with the United States’ 19 per cent.
The report said China’s consumption rose by 11.2 per cent last year. American demand increased 3.7 per cent.
For carbon dioxide emissions China already blew past the United States about 5 years ago due to China’s much heavier reliance on coal. Now China has surpassed the US in total heat energy used across all energy types. The Chinese economy’s heavy reliance on coal makes it more immune to high oil prices. Though high level of car sales in China threatens to make China much more vulnerable to high oil prices.
King Coal gained market share. China was was responsible for two thirds of the coal consumption rise.
Thermal coal consumption in the global energy mix in 2010 rose to 29.6%, its highest level since 1970, according to the BP 2011 Statistical Review of World Energy.
In 2001, coal accounted for 25.6% of the global energy market.
As unrest in China rises the power of the hard liners will likely rise – and as VX notes – the need for a foreign conflict may become more important.
IMHO, China will look west eventually, where the oil is already being produced, and they have an Army they can easily move on land. AFG, India, Pak, and Iran are the ones that really need to be looking out. I would be nervous if I were the PI and Vietnam, but I would really be nervous if I were on the first list.
The people who should be really, really nervous are to the north and west, not the south and east… http://constructive-project.org/en/analysis/5.htm (note – just getting acquainted with this website, so I can’t vouch for everything on it – but it does match up with things I’ve read and heard elsewhere). One almost wonders if PI and Vietnam are more diversions than serious efforts at expansion?
And of course there was that 7-month border “war” the USSR & China fought in 1969, as well as other countless skirmishes along the Amur River throughout the years. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SinolSoviet_border_conflict
(Stupid link doesn’t work–just google Sino-Soviet Border conflict–it’s there.
Indeed – and contra Mr. Clancy I think it might be right and proper for us to let the Chinese and Russians work this out in their own way since Russia has long ago forfeited any claim on Western sympathies or help – they are like Mussolini’s Italy – not strong enough on their own to bring the world down, but happy to do as much damage on the margins and align themselves with any power that seems likely to undermine global stability/the status quo.
Maybe the Phillies will give us Clark and Subic back… They might miss having us right in their back yard.
I’ve had people, in and out of uniform, ask why we have a dog in the fight in Asia.
The Philippines sent a WWII-era destroyer (the largest in their navy) to defend their borders. Taiwan has an air force that’s going to be 10 years behind the behemoth the PLA is building. Vietnam doesn’t deserve the curb stomping they’ll get for daring to ddefend their waters.
China knows what it’s doing. Act aggressive and some future feckless American president will accept their imperial posturing as the “new normal”. He or she will seek “peace in our time” and throw our allies under the bus. What with the Congress watching most of DOD rot and rust, future president Gutless will be able to make a case. And the media will lament the “decline of the American Empire” while licking the Chinese boot.
“Licking the Chinese boot?” Really!
The Chinese know as well as we that we can wipe China off the face of the earth, at any time! Moreover, we are so tied by trade and economics that any actual belligerence would be self-defeating to both.
So why should we now care about Vietnam, where we lost 58,000 +?
And the Philippines? Do you still believe in Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden?” (Be it satire or truth.)
Somehow – and inexplicably – too many worry about Iraq citizens, Afghanistan citizens, and many others over and above our own American citizens who now desperatly need help. We are hurting as a country, big time! We need not to get involved in any more quagmires. We need to rebuild, create jobs, and become less hubristic and less imperialistic.
The times, they are a changn’. [Actually, they already have; but few realize it.]