Arms Race 2018 - Is War Actually On The Horizon?!? Pt 2 - China

in #news7 years ago (edited)

In the first part of this 2 part post, I spoke about Russia and their announcement of new, advanced military hardware and the possible impact of those technologies. You can read the article here.
In this second part I'd like to bring some awareness to what is going on in China, their more recent developments and the geopolitical tensions in the region.



RISE FROM THE SEA


For decades now, China has claimed numerous islands located in both the East and South China Sea as their sovereign land, although many are controlled by other countries such as Japan, Brunei, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Some islands they've laid claim to are submerged during high tide and, in some cases, completely submerged. One of the more well known claims is the Senkaku Islands dispute, or Diaoyu Islands dispute.

"Although the United States does not have an official position on the merits of the competing sovereignty claims, the islands are included within the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, meaning that a defense of the islands by Japan would require the United States to come to Japan's aid."
More on these topics can be found here and here


WHEN TITANS CLASH


While these island disputes seem relatively benign, in the last number of years China has been developing these disputed islands. They've also been hard at work dredging up the seafloor, building atop submerged rock and coral reefs. At a record pace, they're creating even more artificial islands. The Philippines, claiming some of these islands are within their territorial waters, brought a suit against China to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. On July 12, 2016, the international tribunal ruled against China, however, the superpower refused to acknowledge the decision or even the court’s jurisdiction.

What becomes even more concerning, is China has now militarized the islands. Earlier this year, they claimed that a U.S. Navy destroyer violated its sovereignty by sailing within 12 nautical miles of their installments on January 17th. China may be using it to signal future military deployments.





To put things into perspective, we need to ask ourselves why China has so much vested interest in that area... One reason might include more than $5.3 trillion worth of shipping travels through the sea each year... $1.2 trillion of this trade belongs to the United States.


RISING TIDES


With tensions between North Korea and America reaching new heights and the deployment of a US naval fleet to the region, China has had no small voice with concerns to that conflict as well. China and North Korea have a mutual defense treaty, which has allowed North Korea to continue it's weapons testing undeterred. Having a proxy, nuclear capable military power at your doorstep presents quite the convenience for China as well.

CHINA AND RUSSIA TRAIN FOR WAR WITH U.S. IF TRUMP INVADES NORTH KOREA

Combine everything in this article with Chinas aspirations to become
the worlds new petro currency,
their ability to
collapse the American dollar by dumping their treasury notes
and making moves to
standardize their currency to gold...

It just seems like everyone is setting up their pieces on the board.

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hm, informative post, thanks for sharing

Nice Post! Also agree completely. The South China sea islands are a perfect example of their overt and subtle power moves. Followed and i'll go read pt 1.

There's an old saying which some have claimed is an ancient Chinese curse...
"May you live in interesting times"
It's meaning supposedly compares interesting times to times of conflict and disorder and uninteresting times to times of peace and tranquility (more life enhancing).

Although its true origins may not actually be from China, with everything going on in the world today, I think there's a bit of irony to that statement.

Thanks for all your support @diezeldiddy

interesting Quote, I like it!