South China Sea and China (2011-2017)

[Ray]

Indian-Vietnam naval exercise launched in S China Sea

A joint naval exercise was launched by India and Vietnam together in the disputed South China Sea on June 8 as a challenge to the growing influence of China in the region, according to the state-run Global Times.

After premier Li Keqiang's visit to India, four warships from the Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy, including two frigates, one destroyer and one supply ship, began their voyage on May 30 for Vietnam, reports the Calcutta-based Telegraph. The Indian warships arrived at Tien Sa Port in the city of Da Nang on June 4.

The Indian fleet commander said that the government respects the administration and control of all nations over the islands within the disputed region. Rear admiral Ajit Kumar, however, pointed out that peace and stability of the South China Sea is crucial as well to the national interests of India.

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-s...00067&cid=1101

[davidbfpo]

I overlooked posting this National Interest article 'Did China Blink in the South China Sea' published on the 27th July 2014:http://nationalinterest.org/feature/...hina-sea-10956

It starts with:

For seventy-five days starting from May 2, China unilaterally deployed its US$1 billion oil rig HYSY-981 to drill in waters lying within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The platform was originally scheduled to stay until August 15, but on July 15, China announced that the rig had completed its work and would be relocated to Hainan Island. The removal of the drilling rig is as unilateral and unexpected as its deployment. When the platform was parked in the contested area, it sparked the worst crisis since 1988 in Sino-Vietnamese relations.

The author offers three plausible explanations why China blinked. He ends with:

The outcome of this crisis suggests that China is not much different from other actors—it also has its own fear of escalation.

[AdamG]

VOA News

September 29, 2014 1:40 AM

The Philippines and the United States have launched an annual military exercise in the South China Sea, near waters where China is engaged in bitter territorial disputes with its neighbors.

Around 5,000 sailors and Marines from both countries began 11-days of maritime maneuvers on Monday. The Philippine Bilateral Exercises, or "Phiblex" is designed to test the readiness of the two allies to respond to emergencies of any kind.

The two countries will practice boat raids, beach landings, live fire exercises and armored maneuvers near the Spratly islands and Scarborough Shoal, where China has been involved in a string of tense confrontations with rival claimants.

http://www.voanews.com/content/us-ph...s/2465762.html

Vietnam has yet again condemned China after the latter completed a runway for military aircraft on an island in the East Sea (the Vietnamese term for the South China Sea) over which Hanoi claims sovereignty.
“Vietnam has incontestable sovereignty over the Hoang Sa Islands,” Le Hai Binh, the Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman, said at a press briefing Thursday, using the Vietnamese name for the Paracel chain.
The building of the new facility stretching across Woody Island, part of the Paracels, violates the resolution on China-Vietnam maritime issues signed in October 2011 and the Declaration on the Conduct of the Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in 2002, Binh said.
He dismissed the building of the military airstrip as "invalid".

http://www.thanhniennews.com/politic...and-32306.html

[Bob's World]

No sovereignty is "incontestable."

The contest is only just beginning. The relative power between sovereigns is shifting, and those who perceive their sovereignty to be illegitimate (imposed upon them by others), outgrown (relative power shifts make them reasonably perceive they deserve a larger slice of the pie), or simply see opportunities to expand in some way, are already working to do so.

This is how it has always been, and how it will always be. We have a false sense of what "right" looks like due to the artificialities of the post-WWII stand off between East and West. The reality is that what "right" looks like is an ever-changing thing and that nothing in nature is more unnatural than stasis.

[AdamG]

Chinas appears to have made headway in the so-called ‘reclamation’ of disputed areas in the South China Sea, a project to create new land masses using reefs in areas claimed by both Beijing and its neighbors. According to Taiwan and Hong Kong news sources, China’s naval chief has been surveying islands located in disputed maritime territories, angering nations locked in territorial disputes with China such as the Philppines.

http://www.ibtimes.com/chinese-navy-...slands-1706473

[AdamG]

In a dramatic display of strategic naivet, the Philippines decided (early-October) to suspend the repair and upgrade of its age-old airstrip on the Spratly island of Thitu (Pagasa to the Filipinos), among the biggest and most prized land features in the South China Sea, which can generate its own 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The airstrip is critical to the Armed Forces of Philippines (AFP) ability to project power and defend its maritime claims beyond its immediate territorial waters.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/...pines-vs-11534

[AdamG]

OKINAWA, Japan—Swooping down to 500 feet over the western Pacific, Cmdr. Bill Pennington pilots his U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft toward an unidentified vessel off southern Japan.

In the back of the plane, a heavily modified Boeing 737, the crew homes in on the vessel using a barrage of surveillance equipment, including radar, GPS and infrared cameras.

Further down the fuselage stand rows of tube-shaped sonar buoys that the crew can catapult into the sea and that float for up to eight hours as they track objects underwater.

This is a dummy run: Today’s target is a Singaporean container ship, and the P-8 roars by without dropping the buoys. But the aircraft is designed to hunt a far more elusive, and potentially dangerous, quarry: Chinese submarines.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/as-ch...6?mod=yahoo_hs

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to Australia's Lowy Institute for the pointer to this publication, described as:

...it is a must-read for anyone interested in maritime security, the law of the sea, or China's foreign policy.....There are also some great maps in the report. And at only 26 pages it is worth the read.

Link to report:http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/234936.pdf

Link to Lowy Institute's short commentary:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...39632-59375461

[AdamG]

Australians would overwhelmingly reject siding with close ally Japan against top trade partner China over a dispute in the East China Sea and prefer to remain neutral, according to a survey published Tuesday.

Beijing and Tokyo have been engaged in a long and bitter battle over ownership of a contested island chain, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.

http://news.yahoo.com/australians-re...035235251.html

[AdamG]

Look How Quickly China is Building Its Island Bases Out Of Nothing
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/loo...1571576/+damon

Plenty of photos.

[AdamG]

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is building a stronger military as insurance against the country suffering the kind of disaster that befell it during World War Two, the army's paper said on Friday as President Xi Jinping headed to Russia for war commemorations.

China's military buildup, which includes developing stealth fighters and anti-satellite missiles, has unnerved the region and Washington, especially since Xi took office in 2013 and started taking a tougher line on maritime territorial disputes.

Sino-Japan relations have long been poisoned by what China sees as Japan's failure to atone for its occupation of parts of the country before and during the war, and it rarely misses an opportunity to remind its people and the world of this.

http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-militar...030942364.html

[AdamG]

pre-War Zone Tourism
http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-tu...154812791.html

[AdamG]

Cam Ranh Bay: Vietnam's ace in the hole against China

ATSUSHI TOMIYAMA, Nikkei staff writer

HANOI -- Vietnam is David to China's Goliath when it comes to strategic competition. China's economy is 54 times larger and its navy is 10 times bigger.

But as far as territorial disputes in the South China Sea are concerned, Vietnam has an ace up its sleeve: Cam Ranh Bay. To make the most of its leverage, Hanoi is apparently letting Russia use the natural harbor on its central coast.

http://asia.nikkei.com/magazine/2015...-against-China

[davidbfpo]

Cam Ranh Bay: Vietnam's ace in the hole against China:http://asia.nikkei.com/magazine/2015...-against-China

AdamG,

Given the reported closeness between China and Russia of late, often with a stress on commerce and trade, does Vietnam really have a claim upon Russian support? Yes, Russia is in the process of selling Kilo class SSK to Vietnam and offers harbour facilities @ cam Ranh Bay. Then's there a strong element of solidarity between China and Russia politically over so many international issues, often in conflict with the USA.

[AdamG]

HAIPHONG, Vietnam (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Sunday he will urge Vietnamese officials to give up their reclamation projects in the South China Sea, making a direct plea after earlier calling for all countries in the Asia-Pacific region to halt the construction of artificial islands.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-defense-sec...-politics.html

HAI PHONG, VIETNAM — The US will provide $18 million to Vietnam to help procure coast guard patrol vessels, a first step in what Secretary of Defense Ash Carter hopes is a growing military relationship between those two countries.

Carter's comments came shortly after he became the first US Secretary of Defense to board a Vietnamese military vessel, a Coast Guard ship in the port of Hai Phong.

The ships in question are from Louisiana-based Metal Shark, which provides a number of patrol boats to the US Coast Guard.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/def...sels/28290871/


http://www.metalsharkboats.com/

[AdamG]

AdamG,

Given the reported closeness between China and Russia of late, often with a stress on commerce and trade, does Vietnam really have a claim upon Russian support? Yes, Russia is in the process of selling Kilo class SSK to Vietnam and offers harbour facilities @ cam Ranh Bay. Then's there a strong element of solidarity between China and Russia politically over so many international issues, often in conflict with the USA.

Remember the last scene in the Spaghetti Western "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly"?

The Vietnamese are trying to play off the Cam Ranh Bay plum between Moscow and Washington for the most benefits. The only problem playing aginst Putin is that you might wind up with a Naval Infantry Brigade in your front yard one morning, and a Spetsnaz Battalion in your back yard.

On March 11, veteran Reuters correspondent David Brunnstrom published an exclusive report that Russian Tu-95MS Bear nuclear-capable strategic bombers, conducting assertive reconnaissance patrols in the airspace near U.S. military bases in Guam, had been refueled by Russian Il-78 tanker aircraft staging out of the military airfield at Cam Ranh Bay on Vietnam’s central coast.

U.S. officials noted that Russian bomber flights near Guam were part of a global pattern of renewed assertiveness approved by President Vladimir Putin against the U.S. and NATO allies in response to raising tensions over Russian annexation of Crimea, destabilizing activities in Ukraine, and Western punitive sanctions.

It was also reported that the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi had raised official concerns with Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to an anonymous State Department official, “We have urged Vietnamese officials to ensure that Russia is not able to use its access to Cam Ranh Bay to conduct activities that could raise tensions in the region.”

http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/vietn...sia-crossfire/

The United States embassy in Hanoi has asked the Vietnamese government to stop permitting Russia to use a military base to refuel its airplanes. The U.S. says Russia has performed what it calls “provocative flights” around the U.S. territory in the Pacific. Officials have not received an answer from the Vietnamese government.

http://learningenglish.voanews.com/c...y/2677999.html

[AdamG]

While we're on the subject of Vietnam playing Washington against Moscow in the Christmas Gift department.

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam took delivery of two new missile boats on Tuesday made locally and modeled on Russian vessels, the latest move by its military to strengthen maritime defenses as tensions simmer over sovereignty in the South China Sea.

The two Tarantul-class corvettes, known as Molniyas, are equipped with 16 missiles and automatic weapons and are among six ordered by the navy, two of which were delivered last year. The missiles have a range of 130 kilometers.

http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-receiv...165704909.html

[davidbfpo]

Via Reuters:

A Japanese military patrol plane circled over disputed parts of the South China Sea on Tuesday at the start of an exercise with the Philippine military that has irked China.According to Japanese and Philippine officials, the Japanese P3-C Orion surveillance plane, with three Filipino guest crew members, flew at 5,000 feet (1,524 m) above the edge of Reed Bank, an energy-rich area that is claimed by both China and the Philippines. It was accompanied by a smaller Philippine patrol aircraft.

More on this maritime SAR exercise:http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...P30H120150623?

[davidbfpo]

Missing from discussions at last week's US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) was Taiwan's significance in China's land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea, said defense analysts.Held annually since 2009, the S&ED is a high-level government meeting set alternatively in each other's capital.

With the recent reporting on PRC building up some islands in The Spratley's we missed what Taiwan (RoC) was doing:

current expansion projects on Taiwan-controlled Taiping Island (Itu Abu), which include lengthening the runway to accommodate larger aircraft (currently only C-130s can resupply the island), and the construction of a dock capable of handling 3,000-ton vessels, ostensibly for Taiwan's new coast guard cutters.

Link:http://www.defensenews.com/story/def...-pla/29260999/

[Firn]

I'm sure that today more Chinese eyes will be one the stock exchanges then on some small islands. There was much talk about the possibly superior ability (compared to decadent western democracies) of the pseudo-commy dictatorship to manage it's economy. So will the Chinese leadership show economic sense and, hm , leadership?



The markest around the world have not exactly become calmer after the confusing Chinese devaluation which Krugman compared almost two weeks ago with a first bite into a cherry.

Are you staring to have the feeling that when it comes to economic policy Xi-who-must-be-obeyed has no idea what he’s doing? [Quite a bit more seem to share that feeling now]

....

This is what Charlie Kindleberger used to call “taking the first bite of the cherry”. (Nobody takes just one bite out of a cherry.) China has now demonstrated that its currency peg is no longer solid; but it has come nowhere near to devaluing enough to create expectations of future appreciation. This is a recipe for convincing investors that the future direction of the currency is down — which means that capital flight will accelerate (and apparently already has.)