Trump's Navy

[AdamG]

I'm belly laughing the Chinese who think that the SCS is their sovereign territory. That is like me claiming Key West is my sovereign territory, regardless of what the law says. Maybe I should go there and try to chase away the Coast Guard boats. It is about time we make some those military bases in the South China Sea simply disappear.

I'd like to be pithy with a quote about living in *Interesting Times*, but that's culturally inappropriate.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/...ing-times.html

HONG KONG/BEIJING, Jan 23 (Reuters) - While the Pentagon plays down patrols close to Chinese-controlled reefs and islands in the South China Sea, Beijing is sounding the alarm about them, seeking to justify what experts say will be an even greater presence in the disputed region.
Chinese officials publicized the latest U.S. "freedom of navigation patrol", protesting the deployment last week of the destroyer USS Hopper to within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, an atoll west of the Philippines which Beijing disputes with Manila.
It was the second time in recent months that confirmation of a patrol came from Beijing, not Washington, which had previously announced or leaked details.
Bonnie Glaser, a security expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said while the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had a policy of keeping the patrols regular but low key, China was willing to publicly exploit them to further their military ends.
"It is difficult to conclude otherwise," she said. "Even as it pushes ahead with these (patrols), I don't think the Trump administration has really come to terms with what it will tolerate from China in the South China Sea, and what it simply won't accept, and Beijing seems to grasp this."

http://news.trust.org/item/20180123063045-8mhe8

For those in the cheap seats or just tuning in, don't miss our (currently 39 page) mega-thread on the Spratly Islands drama.
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=13460