Another Dispute Over a Small, But Occupied, Island
Map of Pag-asa Island
Gee whiz, people, I thought we had this all settled. It appears that Rodrigo Duterte, the current President of the Philippines, is trying to make nice with China to avoid being overwhelmed by China’s aggressive land-grab program in the South China Sea and its connected waters. Pag-asa’s location is about halfway between Palang and the coast of Vietnam.
From the article: MANILA, Philippines — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has described his dilemma in dealing with a more powerful China in territorial disputes in the South China Sea, saying he has few options other than to order troops to “prepare for suicide missions” if a Philippine-occupied island comes under threat.
Duterte reminded China in a speech Thursday night of its closer ties with the Philippines under his leadership, but said if an island occupied by Filipinos in the disputed waters is threatened, “things would be different.”
“I’m trying to tell China, Pag-asa is ours … so let us be friends but do not touch Pag-asa Island and the rest. Otherwise, things would be different,” Duterte said. “This is not a warning, this is just a word of advice to my friends, because China is our friend.” — Article.
Please note this part at the end of the article: Duterte said the Americans would comply with their obligations under their Mutual Defense Treaty with Manila but that they need congressional permission before going to war.
“Do I trust the Americans? Yes. But will that help be on time? That’s the problem,” he said. – Article. Read the entire article.
Mr. Duterte, history has shown that China is nobody’s friend, unless it wants something from you. And it wants the Spratly Islands – ALL of them, including Pag-asa, where you have an established base.
Sorry, but that’s my Cynic showing up and shaking the Dustmop of Reality, because once WWII in the Pacific was over and done and USAAF pilots weren’t needed to fly supplies over The Hump, the USA was no longer welcome in China.
Is this “here we go again”? Anyone besides me think the Navy will start to repopulate the bars on Magsaysay Street?
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", China, Foreign Policy
My initial gut was why all of this BS over a remote insignificant island. Then I recalled another small remote island called Diego Garcia that the admiral I worked for at the time had a vision about. I suspect China realizes their aircraft carriers suck which is why they are establishing a chain of islands.
Yes, and it is also probably the reason that China is adding land mass to those small islands.
At first, a couple of years ago, I thought they were using those for oil drilling platforms because there is oil in the South China Sea. But that was just an excuse to co-opt the entire chain. And ALL of those islands are in their target line of sight.
Amen. Unrest in the Spratly’s was one of Tom Clancy’s favorite plots. We shouldn’t let China establish ANY airfields there… (poor man’s aircraft carriers=islands).
Maybe a Trump visit is due in the PI now?
Why not? Guy needs some sun! 🙂
The Chicoms are playing the long game. They don’t need to get something done before the end of the next election cycle to make the masses happy. I’m sure Xi is content that one way or another China will have those islands it wants.
I only got to visit the Subic Bay Municipal Area (SBMA) and Crow Valley when I happened by the Philippines in 2012. Now that I’m retired I guess I’d only be able to go as a tourist. Very sad 🙁 Well, I guess my kids might get the chance to visit some time in the future. . .
“….history has shown….unless it wants something from them.”
Not only China, but the rest of the world too, when it comes to the US.
We do not want a shooting war with the Chi-Coms. We could kill a billion of them and they would still out number us. And now we have a major multitude of internal enemies too?
Once the camel gets its nose under the tent flap, you gonna get fleas.
I’m surprised that the island hasn’t capsized, the runway extension surely had to unbalance it…
Well, you see, Hank Johnson doesn’t represent any part of the P.I., so it’s okay.
To paraphrase “Sideshow Bob” Terwilliger, “Just the thought of those hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean makes me wonder why the hell I should care.”
Why should anyone care? The Japanese seized control of most of the Pacific islands and held that control until we drove them back to Japan.
China/Xi Jinping is simply doing what Japan did, but China’s ships aren’t nearly as good as Japan’s were pre-WWII.
Keep an eye peeled on this. Something’s going on.
Seriously you’re comparing modern day China to the Japanese empire of WWII?
OK, I’ll play: How many countries has China invaded and subjugated? How many American fleets have they bombed?
I get it that there are veterans out there who miss the Cold War but I’m not one of them.
I see zero benefit to the US locking horns with the Chinese. You may remember that the last time it happened in 1950 in Korea, it didn’t go that well for us.
If someone can explain what kind of magic beans they grow in the Spratley islands that are worth the blood of even one American soldier, sailor, airman or marine, I’ve yet to hear it.
BTW aren’t we still at war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria? How ’bout we finish those before we start picking fights with other countries?
Martinjmpr, actually after their initial act of unprovoked aggression, the Chinks routinely got their asses handed to them. We still held onto South Korea, and they achieved nothing other than keeping the Kimster in office in Norkville. Had we really decided to commit to Korea, rather than playing at half court, they would have lost millions of their “volunteers”. The Chinese have only one thing going for them, numbers. And it never works for them. Remember when they invaded Vietnam and lost badly in that endeavor?
Various Chinese dynasties have invaded Korea (Sui dynasty), and Vietnam. Vietnam was occupied by Chinese dynasties for nearly 1,000 years. Many Vietnamese have adopted features of Chinese culture to the point that many Chinese have difficulty telling them that they are not Chinese. In the late Ming/early Qing dynasty, the Chinese briefly occupied parts of Myanmar, mainly to capture and kill remnants of the Ming family which had fled to Myanmar. Sino-Soviet border conflict: on March 2, 1969, a group of Chinese troops ambushed Soviet border guards on Zhenbao Island. Sino-Indian War: unable to reach political accommodation on disputed territory along the 3,225-kilometer-long Himalayan border, the Chinese launched simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line on 20 October 1962, coinciding with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chinese troops advanced over Indian forces in both theaters, capturing Rezang la in Chushul in the western theater, as well as Tawang in the eastern theater. The war ended when the Chinese declared a ceasefire on 20 November 1962, and simultaneously announced its withdrawal from the disputed area. Korean War: after secretly crossing the Yalu River on 19 October, the PVA 13th Army Group launched the First Phase Offensive on 25 October, attacking the advancing U.N. forces near the Sino-Korean border. Though the Chinese claim that the UN forces crossed the border into China, this is denied by the US. Qing Dynasty Sino-Burmese War (1765–1769): China under the Qianlong Emperor launched four invasions of Burma between 1765 and 1769, which were considered as one of Qianlong’s Ten Great Campaigns. The war ended with Burmese independence. Ming–Turpan conflict: the Ming Dynasty annexed Hami in 1404 and turned it into Hami Prefecture. In 1406 it defeated the ruler of Turpan. Goguryeo–Sui War: the Goguryeo–Sui War were a series of campaigns launched by the Sui Dynasty of China against the Goguryeo of Korea between 598 and 614. It resulted in the defeat of Sui and contributed to the eventual downfall of the dynasty in 618. That’s a partial list. Any questions? Japan tried to dominate the Pacific island chains to build bases, prior to attacking Pearl… Read more »
Yes, just one:
So what?
Really, so what? So China wants to build a base near the Philippines. Why should I (or any other American) care?
Are you advocating that we attack China? Or fight China on the high seas?
Do you genuinely believe that China is intent on a military conquest of the Philippines? They have been bragging about taking Taiwan for 50 years and Taiwan is a hell of a lot closer to them than the PI, and yet they haven’t done that, probably because (a) the Taiwanese would fight very hard and (b) they would seriously jeapordize their favorable trade relationship with the US.
I seriously don’t get the cold war fantasies here. Does it make people feel important to ring the alarm bells and warn us of the “yellow menace” of China?
Of all the info you provided there was one thing you left out and it’s the only question that matters:
What, in that part of the world, is worth the life of even ONE American?
This is no Cold War fantasy. China is rapidly achieving the #1 position as a manufacturing entity. Here’s a brief list of stuff that is of real concern: – China has a large supply of unmined lithium and other rare earth mineral ores within its borders. Those rare earths, once they are refined, go into the electronic junk that everyone buys. And the Chinese government really does not care whether mining and refining create massive pollution. I just bought a Lexar jump drive for copying stuff off one drive, and it’s made in China. We aren’t making those here. The pollution, even though nominal, terrifies the ecohippies. – China has an immense labor pool that works for crap wages and lousy benefits. From The Economist in 2017: WHETHER in the breathless years of double-digit economic growth or today’s more languid era, one constant in China has been the poor state of workers’ rights and the frequent outbreaks of labor unrest. From coalminers in the snowy north-east to factory staff in the steamy Pearl River Delta, workers have agitated against low pay, wage arrears, unsafe conditions and job losses. A law on labor contracts that took effect in 2008 aimed to keep Chinese hard-hats happier, and on paper it should have succeeded. Indeed, the worldwide ranking of employment-protection laws by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a rich-country think-tank, puts China near the very top of the tables on several indicators. In practice, however, the law has only helped a bit. The lack of independent unions or genuine collective bargaining leaves China’s blue-collar workers vulnerable and grumpy. Incidents of labor unrest remain widespread. https://www.economist.com/china/2017/08/17/chinas-labour-law-is-no-use-to-those-who-need-it-most I doubt that’s changed much in the last 18 months.However, almost all labor-intensive work, e.g., assembly line jobs, has left most of the USA and gone across borders into Mexico (my stove, some cars) and China (computers, electronic junk including cameras) and Indonesias/India and Central America (the entire garment industry from fiber products to sewing). Unless something happens, it’s not coming back here. – It is even difficult to get building a new nuclear power plant… Read more »
They appear to be monolithic, but have a number of serious fracture points developing.
Their “one child” policy, state mandated mass-infanticide, combined with a huge societal bias towards only keeping male children as the “one”, has left them with an insurmoutable pobulation imbalance. Tens of millions of men with no hope of -ever- having a wife. Hundreds of millions of eventual old folks with almost no kids to care for them. Or to work anywhere.
The wheels come off that stagecoach in about 20 more years. Thirty tops.
Their economy is -highly- dependent on affluent external customers. If we embargoed them, and there was even a little worldwide go-along with us, they collapse in a year, tops. We can still feed ourselves. They -can’t-. Not without trade and foreign currency.
They do not well tolerate chaos, or for long. We thrive on it. We -are- chaos.
Once the current oldsters with a death- grip on the party pass on to their ancestors, there may be an opportunity for internal reform. If not, they will experience a revolution, breakup, or death spasm the likes of which the world hasn’t seen in millennia.
By the way, they believe they can sink our aircraft carriers, defeating our power projection, while we are unable to sink their carrier-islands. Two words:
Castle Bravo.
Defeating monsters is best done while the monsters are small and Ill-fed, not when they are huge.
We need and use that ocean. So do our friends ad associates. Isolationism is impossible in the 21st century. The world is far too small.
-impossible-
China is already working on influence and colonizationin South and Central America. That can’t end well for us. Who did you think was helping flush so many folks north to our borders? They wrote the original book on warfare, remember? Guy named Sun Tzu? “Sow discord in the enemy camp”? They taught the Russians everything the Russians think they know about espionage and subversion, and exceeded Hitler and Stalin -combined- in mass murder.
They ain’t going away, they call themselves and mean to be “the central kingdom”, and they outnumber us by about 6 or 7 to one.
“The goal of the Japanese government was to take possession of the USA west coast,”
Negative. There was some hysteria at the time that they would, but the Japanese had neither the capability nor the desire. The Dutch East Indies, on the other hand…
Their goal, towards us, was to defeat our Navy and dictate terms.
The latter part is not a one-time thing, remember.
13 NM from Subi Reef must be a tad too close for them. Pag-Asa would may a great site to keep tabs on what’s going on there.
Xi does not lack the capability to influence PRC’s assertive behavior, but his role has likely been more akin to a gatekeeper than an architect of China’s expansion of control over maritime East Asia. This “expansion” effort started some time before Hu was Xi’s predecessor; this means that the policies were set in place in the late 1990s or early 2000s, after which Hu and now Xi simply followed and enforced them.
This suggests that any attempt by Washington to use deterrence-signaling to shape China’s behavior in this area will hvae to capture Xi’s attention first, and convince him that the undesired course of action is against China’s, and his own, interests.
Speaking of China wanting something, I hear they are beginning to loan money to countries in Africa (or in the beginning of loaning money plus improving the infrastructure in those countries). Of course you can probably guess what happens if they can’t pay the loan back (which will be guaranteed). The Africa Report says Djibouti already owes money to China and is now in debt. No better than taking money from a loan shark.
“Belt and road initiative”
They have been at this in Africa and South America for quite some time.
It seems like they might be kicking it into high gear now.
There may come a time soon when the Philippines will have to look at that long game, too. Is averting war with China now worth the shafting they’ll take once the godless commie bastards get what they want? After all, they don’t want the land for its own sake; they want leverage on the Philippines, as well as Vietnam, Malaysia, and the entire world who run their commercial shipping traffic through the South China Sea.
The Red Chinese Navy may not be particularly effective, but the Philippine Navy is a weekend yacht club by comparison. They will need us in that fight. Other allies too. Red China really wants to be a superpower, and there’s a fight coming with them somewhere, someday. Meanwhile, Russia is throwing gas on the fire and breaking out the marshmallows.
Excellent analysis, and probably too close to the reality to be comfortable.
The Philippine government wanted us out, so when Pinatubo blew its stack, and Clark AFB was abandoned, the PI got what it wanted. Not too much longer, they started wanting USA back.
I wonder why.
I hope this does not end in some kind of confrontation, but China is on a roll here. They can mine rare earths locally for electronic components and they don’t care if it pollutes the place. They’ve been regularly adding more coal-fired power plants to what they already have. They’ve made a soft landing on the far side of the moon. They are on a roll to be #1.
I hope they know when to pull back and not run off a cliff.
I have no trouble with china doing what we have been doing since the end of ww2.
It’s about time some one said FU, “if you can we can”
If china and russia were smart, they’d be working together 100% of the time, on every level in wvery way.
Rome will fall,,and it was beought about by the people not controlling the traitors in DC.
BAMN
Duterte’s my hero. He’s like a competent Trump that actually does what he promises. I love that he’s putting illicit drug abusers to death; I wish we did that in this country. Too bad Sessions was the only guy who gave a shit. When the Democrats win in 2020, we’re going to have scumfuck druggies everywhere.