Beijing’s militarization of islands and features it claims in the South China Sea is by now widely seen as a threat to freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most strategically important waterways.
What’s gone less noticed, however, is how Beijing could use those emerging forward bases to project power into the South Pacific, where critics say Beijing harbors “neo-colonial” ambitions and the United States maintains crucial naval and air force bases on Guam.
A Pentagon report released last month that said China was likely training for air strikes against US and allied targets will have brought China’s emerging power projection capabilities into the Pacific into stark and urgent relief among policymakers in Washington.
The report indicates these training flights are also designed to influence island nations in the South Pacific, where China’s advance southward is already viewed with concern by the US.
“With a strong foothold in the [South China Sea] now, China can project military power across the Pacific Islands at a time when its fishing fleets are also increasing their presence there,” said Ben Bohane, a Vanuatu-based reporter who has written extensively about Beijing’s growing presence across Oceania.
China’s bases in the South China Sea’s Spratly and Paracel island chains, from which Peoples Liberation Army Air Force strategic bombers can reach well into Oceania, now back Beijing’s economic and political ambitions in various Pacific Islands.
Naval and aviation support facilities on Fiery Cross, Subi, and Mischief Reefs in the South China Sea are roughly 1,500 miles closer to Oceania than mainland China bases. Ongoing construction on these three major outposts supports Beijing’s ability to impose force in the poorly defended region.
Captain James Fanell, a retired senior US Navy intelligence officer who has focused on China’s Navy for 30 years, claims that China’s militarization of these South China Sea islands plays into its larger scheme of regional hegemony.
“Across the vast expanse of Oceania, China’s deepening economic and political relationships have paved the way for port leases and maritime construction efforts that serve the PRC’s global power projection vision, and threaten free nations’ security interests,” says Fanell. “It is making a powerful play for this resource-rich, strategically crucial region, from the continent of Australia to the least-populated island nations.”
The Pentagon’s “2018 China Military Power Report”, released on August 16, depicts the offensive strike reach of the PLA’s bombers that can now fly from South China Sea islands deep into Oceania.
It also details the fast improvement of its military capacities on these artificial islands, including through enhanced aviation and port capabilities, fixed-weapons and sensor positions, barracks, communication facilities, and plans for floating nuclear power plants.
Deep offensive reach
While China’s notorious nine-dash line map claim to most of the 3.5 million square kilometer South China Sea was ruled illegal by a Permanent Arbitral Tribunal at The Hague in July 2016, Beijing has openly flouted the international law-based ruling.
Instead, it has increasingly used its military, which now includes its Coast Guard and “Maritime Militia” fishing fleets, to interfere with other nations’ vessels when they transit through the sea. It also deploys those assets to block other claimant nations from accessing the area’s resources including fish and oil.
China started to militarize the South China Sea in 2015, despite a promise by Chinese President Xi Jinping not to do so. Beijing first deployed advanced fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles to the Paracels, an island chain near Vietnam.
In the Spratlys, Beijing has recently completed defense-related infrastructure, including runways capable of accommodating fighter jets across seven artificial islands.
Navy warships now routinely use berthing areas and logistics and intelligence capabilities on the fortified features. Further, Beijing is installing long-range anti-ship cruise missiles and air-defense missile systems in the contested maritime region.
In mid-May, PLA Air Force long-range, nuclear strike-capable H-6K bombers operated for the first time from Woody Island in the Paracels. From there, the cruise missile-equipped bombers can attack targets as much as 3,300 kilometers away, or deep into the Pacific Islands and down to Australia.
Establishing unrivaled military control in the South China Sea helps Beijing achieve immediate strategic objectives, but it is also a key step in China advancing its status as a Pacific Ocean power intent on rivaling America’s long-standing predominance in the area.
Economic advances, colonial ambitions
Over the last five years, Beijing has significantly bolstered its economic ties within Oceania, according to a US-China Economic and Security Review Commission report released in June.
Oceania consists of more than 10,000 islands divided into the sub-regions of Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Australasia; “Pacific Islands” refers to only the first three sub-regions.
While the Pacific Islands’ combined landmass is small—roughly the size of Spain–their total exclusive economic zones (EEZs) span nearly 7.7 million square miles of ocean space.
As Bohane notes: “Don’t look at the Pacific as comprising small-island states in a vast ocean: look at them as large-ocean nations to understand their true size and importance. Nations like Kiribati have an EEZ almost the size of the continent of Australia.”
China has growing geostrategic interests in the region. It is the largest trading partner with Pacific Island countries, with trade totaling US$8.2 billion in 2017.
Beyond its trade interests, Beijing’s enhanced engagement with the region is driven by “its broader diplomatic and strategic interests, reducing Taiwan’s international space, and gaining access to raw materials and natural resources,” says the Commission report, entitled “China’s Engagement in the Pacific Islands: Implications for the United States.”
To this end, China is deeply involved with Pacific Island regional organizations, for which it often provides funding and other support. However, Beijing’s perceived tendency in recent years to throw its weight around at the annual Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) has started to run some the wrong way.
On September 6, China’s representative to the PIF partner dialogue in Nauru stormed out of the meeting after trying unsuccessfully to address the session and engaging in a tense exchange with the forum’s chair, Nauru President Baron Waqa.
Beijing’s strategy for achieving its aims in the Pacific Islands is well-established and predicable, says Fanell. It starts with financial aid, political donations and investment that pave commercial inroads and an increase in Chinese migration to the region. After co-opting government officials, invariably a PLA Navy-related military objective emerges, he says.
This objective can range from Chinese military access to ports and airfields to so-called “blocking efforts” against the US, seen in the recent obstruction of the development of US military training facilities in the Marianas.
Integration or Infiltration?
Australia’s Lowy Institute think tank reported in August that China’s financial aid commitment to the Pacific Islands has skyrocketed to US$5.9 billion since 2011.
Australia’s commitment is still the largest of all nations (US$6.72 billion), and it provides all of its aid as grants; by contrast, Lowy’s data suggests about 67% of China’s aid has been disbursed as loans, with only 32% given as grants.
China’s interest-bearing loans have saddled many countries worldwide with what are increasingly being referred to as unsustainable “debt traps.”
This debt allows Beijing to take control of the cash-strapped debtor nations’ ports and other facilities as partial repayment, as evidenced by the 99-year lease Sri Lanka signed with a Chinese state-owned enterprise for its Hambantota Port in July 2017.
The “China debt trap” model has become a serious crisis for Pacific Island nations, said Tonga’s Prime Minister Akalisi Pohiva on August 16. Tonga is one of several Pacific Island nations that have borrowed heavily from China and is currently struggling to pay back loans worth about US$160 million from China’s Export-Import Bank.
Last month, Pohiva called on Pacific Island leaders to band together and press China to write off their debts.
Nearly 4,000 miles to the northwest, another small Pacific Island nation, Palau, is a country under economic siege. Its empty hotel rooms, idle tour boats, and shuttered construction sites are the result of Beijing’s economic warfare against it for its continued diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Until recently, China accounted for roughly half of Palau’s all-important tourist trade. But late last year, China employed what some have called “weaponized tourism” to force Palau, a sovereign nation, to submit to Beijing’s foreign policy direction. Beijing effectively banned tour groups and further investment in the idyllic tropic archipelago.
Another rising concern for Pacific islanders is fast-shifting demographics. Island nations have small indigenous populations that could easily be swamped by Chinese immigration, especially now that many island nations are “selling citizenship and passports”, according to Bohane.
“In Vanuatu, a nation of less than 300,000 people, there are plans for two Chinese cities that could host a total of 10,000 to 20,000 people. Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, currently has only 40,000 residents.
While many islanders welcome Chinese investment and trade, they are simultaneously concerned about losing control of their economies and the influx of both Chinese workers and wealthy Chinese expats who live in walled compounds, Bohane said.
Some Pacific Islanders, such as the Solomon Islands researcher Toata Molea, have used the term “colonialism” to describe largely unchecked Chinese investment and immigration to his country, according to a recent New York Times report. “They own everything,” Molea was quoted saying about his ethnic Chinese neighbors. “My fear is that in the next 10 years, this place will be taken over by the Chinese.”
A more accurate term might be “neo-colonialism”, academically defined as the use of “capitalism, globalism and cultural imperialism to exert influence and ultimately control over a country.”
Chinese “neo-colonialism” is, for now, a battle for the hearts and minds of local island populations, Bohane says. “Currently, massive Chinese investment to boost island economies is winning the hearts and minds of island leaders and well-off elites, but not necessarily the populace.”
Foreign policy for sale
Vanuatu, well known for its robust independent foreign policy, is seen by some as the political capital of Melanesia. China boasts it now has more aid projects in Vanuatu than any other Pacific Island country.
“Beijing built a new wharf on the Vanuatu island of Espiritu Santo, making it one of the largest ports in the South Pacific,” says Bohane. “It has built sports stadiums, convention centers, roads, airport upgrades, office buildings for Vanuatu’s Foreign Affairs, and the Prime Minister’s new office.” Australian, Japanese, European, and US aid is comparatively much less visible, he says.
In late 2016, in diplomatic return for Beijing’s financial largesse, Vanuatu became the first Pacific Island nation to recognize China’s claims in the South and East China Seas. Since then, other Pacific nations that receive copious Chinese aid like Nauru and Papua New Guinea have followed suit.
Recent media reports suggest China aims to establish a naval base at Vanuatu. While Vanuatu’s government and Chinese officials deny such plans exist, Beijing initially denied it had plans for the military base it has since established at Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa.
The base, a 200-acre heavily-fortified facility dubbed by at least one analyst as a “mega-fortress”, became operational in August 2017 and is China’s first such overseas facility.
Described by Beijing as a “logistics base”, the strategic facility is in reality a launch pad that allows PLA Navy and Marine forces assigned there to conduct a wide range of military operations in the region.
China is also investing heavily in the South Pacific’s New Caledonia. Some there are nervous about a looming referendum on whether to declare independence from France and if the vote could potentially lead to violence.
Beijing’s interest in French Polynesia stems from its access to the rich fishery resources of the so-called “tuna belt” as well as its use in space exploration activities, says Fanell. The islands also provide a refueling and transshipment point between China and the Americas that could support PLA operations in the future.
One indicator of intent, Fanell says, is China’s investment of US$330 million for an aquaculture project in French Polynesia’s large and remote Hao atoll—an investment that surpasses all foreign direct investment received by French Polynesia between 2013 and 2016 combined.
The atoll once supported France’s nuclear testing program and is home to an airport that has the capacity to support strategic bombers.
Spanning across Oceania, China is also showing deep interest in the Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. Each island nation, analysts say, provides potential military logistics and intelligence facility sites.
Bohane and others highlight the potential for instability in some of the island states. They predict possible “pushback” by local citizens against China’s rising political and economic domination of their nations, particularly if that influence is leveraged to facilitate waves of Chinese migration.
Any outburst of instability could be the initial pretext for China to dispatch its Marines to protect its interests and citizens in Pacific Island nations.
“There have been anti-Chinese riots and other violence in Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands in the past,” Bohane says. “At the time, China protested but could not intervene militarily, so the Australian and New Zealand military stepped in to protect local Chinese communities.”
China is rapidly expanding its Marine Corps, from 10,000 Marines just a few years ago to around 30,000 today. Beijing ultimately aims to have 100,000 Marines. It can now deploy these elite soldiers in amphibious assault ships, potentially utilizing its militarized South China Sea islands as staging areas.
These forces could theoretically stay afloat in the South Pacific for extended periods and would be well-prepared to intervene in small island nations’ internal affairs, particularly if their respective governments were unable to maintain internal stability.
“What happens when both the Chinese and Australian military intervene to stabilize a situation next time? Will this give Chinese forces an opportunity for mission creep to stay on and protect expanding Chinese interests and populations there?” Bohane asks.
At America’s shores
Beijing seeks inroads into Oceania not only for resources, but also as “stepping stones” to Antarctica and the Americas, Bohane says.
Ultimately, China seeks to block US influence and military capabilities in the region, says Fanell, and it is employing so-called “political warfare” to achieve that aim.
In the American territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), situated just north of Guam, China’s political warfare operations are disrupting essential US military activities.
For instance, Chinese resort developers are now stymying US development of vital amphibious operations training areas on Pagan Island. The inability to conduct such training on US territory because of Chinese influence operations has seriously degraded the readiness of frontline US Navy and Marine Corps forces in the Marianas, says Fanell.
The Commission report details the influence operations by Chinese-owned casino resort owners such as Alter City Group, which lobbied CNMI elected officials against US military activities there because “benefits from the military . . . are minimal, but the burdens are significant and unsustainable.”
China has legitimate geo-strategic interests in the South Pacific linked to its growing trade and investment in the region. But it also has military and political ambitions that could soon replicate the destabilizing situation it has created through its militarization of the South China Sea.
In the South Pacific, that risk comes with what many see as China’s neo-colonial ambitions, a gathering drive that threatens to overwhelm the lightly populated, resource-rich and strategically important ocean basin with Chinese capital, people and a vision for regional domination.
Professor Kerry K Gershaneck is currently a scholar at the Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies, National Chengchi University, Taiwan, ROC; a senior research associate with Thammasat University’s Faculty of Law (CPG); and the Distinguished Visiting Professor at Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy, Thailand. He is a former US Marine Corps officer, with extensive operational and security policy experience in the Asia-Pacific.
Syed Fazal Abbas But China and most of East Asia have TFR’s less than 2, so they are unlikely to colonise the West. While your TFR (fertility and fvck) appears to be zero -apart from you imaginary Turkish wife of course.
Jim Lim You not only look the same, you think the same.
Terry Kerr Using Fascism as an insult, isn’t ‘Communist’ an equally bad insult as Fascist ?
Sonny Azhak
1. Pakistanis fully support the policy.
2. Some Turkish-speaking Uighur Muslims are terrorists. They must be contained.
3. Terrorist Uighurs and Tibetans should be contained.
4. Mohammed was "Ummi", not illiterate. Bad translation. Being a successful businessman he could read and count. Have you ever seen a businessman who did not read and count?
5. Pakistanis love China and their system. What do you think anti-West Imran is going to do? Finally liberate Paks from Westernization. Look at India – Democracy and Bollywood, source of poverty.
Well, eat your heart out Indians. Paks have IK who unites all, you have Modi who like Trump divides all. I wonder if there will be USA or India left in 10 years.
And btw, Tariq Ali the fake Marxist is himself a used condom, lol. He is a broken record for last 60 years. No one takes him seriously, even in the West.
Jim Lim Are Americans racist because they dont want to date Chinese males, in that case most of the world is racist, including alot of Chinese ladies !
Joe Wong You and George not only look the same, you sound the same.
Joe Wong What about the propaganda of the CCP, is it any more truthful ?
Syed Fazal Abbas Did mo’ also marry a 6yo and pork her at 9 ? Did he ride a winged pony to heaven, did he split the Moon ?
As you claim to be an academic (probably no other job you could do) and a Mohammedan…. you really should answer these questions.
Sonny Azhak used condom…. love it, from Tariq Ali who atleast has the honesty to stick to his principles of socialism.
Are you talking about ‘professors’ like Sad Abbas and Know-nothing Silva ?
Yashad Rizvi I’m talking about the author of thus article and a lot of other horribly analyzed Asia Times articles that I’ve read over the years that were also written by professors.
WHAT A TOTAL JOKE THE ONCE-PROUD ASIA TIMES HAS BECOME : IT’S LIKE A HMV "HIS MASTER’S VOICE" MOTHPIECE FOR THE US STATE DEPARTMENT
1. PRC’s claims in the South China Sea are identical to Taiwan’s and predated the establishment of the PRC itself
2. UNCLOS is the Law of the SEA and is subsidiary to the Law of the LAND: it has nothing to say about territorial rights, just commercial entitlements by way of EEZ’s. The USA hasn’t even signed up to it
3. PRC has NEVER interfered with the passage of any commercial vessel through the South China Sea, and has mereley been involved in mutual standoffs with e.g. Philippines, Vietnamese and Japanese coastguards and fisheries protection vessels. In contrast, what legitimate interest does the USA have in the region
4. $5 trillion of annual trade DOES NOT pass through the contested islands: look on a nautical chart and you will see that the are is annotated as "DANGEROUS GROUND" because of the multiple sholas and reefs in the area, on which both Filipino and American warships have run aground
The shipping lanes are hundreds of kilometres away, and the majority of e.g. Australian trade with e.g. Korea and Japan passes further East through the Lombok Strait and to the East of the Philippines, rather than through the South China Sea
5. Look up the Philippines Constitution 1935 & 1971, and the Diplomatic Note from Vietnam to China recognising PRC’s sovereignty; if the ICJ hadn’t been suborned by Western interests to the point where not a single Asian nation was represented amongst it’s Judges, then the 2016 ruling would never have come down in the Philippines’ favour; in any case PRC has a fully-legitimate and commonplace legal exemption from ICJ jurisdiction in UNCLOS cases, and the proceedings were funded and conducted by interest groups located in the USA rather than the Philippines. Check it out if you don’t beleive me
This website is a farce – BLATANT PROPAGANDA
Yashad Rizvi "whataboutery"
Yes, they are Commies! – everything they say is surely a lie, whilst everything come out of the USA is the Gospel Truth
Maybe. Or maybe not, as the case may be. The simple fact is, this article is plain and utter bullsh1t – and it didn’t need any guidance or support from the CCP to achieve that status
have you ever actually it been to or lived in China, John? I have, and the Rule of Law is both well established and very effective
it is not the CCP which is lawless and anarchistic – it is the Chinese psyche and cultural outlook, which treat laws as purely decorative notions and as guidance for other people to follow.
in contrast, I think you will find the Chinese government’s actions both at home and abroad entirely in accordance with its own Laws and with International Law
For those of you reading this at home in black & white in Minnesota, the "1 million in concentration camps in Xinjiang" story was formally disowned by the United Nations, and came from a sole American source. Similarly, you may be surprised to hear that the current Dalai Lama was, for 8 years after the supposed Chinese invasion of Tibet, a close friend of Mao Zedong and a member of the inner Politburo of the CCP in Beijing. Google it. His predecessor, the previous Dalai Lama, had fled to exile in China earlier in the 20th century, because the country had been invaded. By the British. Who machine-gunned the local peasants. Google that one too if you like.
This article is pure, ill-informed propaganda, and can easily be shown to be both selectively biased and factually misguided
Joe Wong : Yes, your charges might be all true. You learned all this truth from Canadians, did you? But have you learned some true history about Chinese killing and genociding first nations in Asia? Such as the ancestors of those 56 first nations surviving today in China? One example is the Dzungar people who were genocided about 400 years ago, at the same thing as the white people were killing the first nations in North America. Of courese there many other killings and genocides done to Asian first nations by the Chinese. Have you learned them? If not, just take a look at the Chinese ancient maps here:
https://www.chinahighlights.com/map/ancient-china-map/
Joe Wong: All your charges against the Americans are false. Without the Americans you Chinese would have remained as hungry and poor as the 1960s. All the other nations have witnessed that you Chinese being saved from poverty by the Americans giving you food, money, technology, trade, etc. otherwise how could you write on computers? drive cars? be dressed like Americans? write American language? think like an American? etc etc etc.
Yashad Rizvi : There are more people to ask, such as Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, Singaporans, Malasianas, Indonesians, Indians. Even the Russians should be asked too.
Syed Fazal Abbas ‘our neighbor’? I thought you lived your sad and lonely life in N America ?
Jason Jean Unlike the propaganda from the CCP !
Andrew S Carter I have also lived and worked in China and you are right the rule of the CCP (not law) is very effective.
Of course it’s easy as a large, popular (ladies or certain type of gentlemen) to be a filth (failed in London, try HK) and enjoy your time there, because you know you can leave.
But would you really want to be a Han, let alone a Uighur or Tibetan under the CCP ?
Once proud AT ? What have you smoked ?
Another Wumao, with a few photos from Pommieland.
Andrew S Carter
You should tell your communist controllers the Poms dont usually put their middle names as initials, unless of course it’s a double barrel name, in which case you need a hyphen.
The middle initial is the pride of the septic tanks (Yanks). Also the Poms commenting in this section tend to have a few friends…. anothiner thing to tell your paymasters.
Yashad Rizvi I actually read Chinese, Canadian, U.S., and European news. I read them all together. And you know what I’ve discovered when doing this? All the countries’ media has a bias towards their own interests. But, and this is a big issue, I’ve never found that the Chinese state media lies about anything. It’s biased, yes, but it doesn’t lie. Now when other western media discuss China it is common to lie, and even more common to discuss half-truths. I could give numerous examples, but I’ll settle for one. The South China Sea. If you read about these disputes in any western media, you will hear that all these countries have disputes with China, but you won’t hear that they also all have disputes with each other. You won’t hear that China filed its claims to the South China Sea with the UN in 1946, years before the other claimant countries even became countries capable of making claims. You won’t hear that China controls 7 islands, Malaysia controls 5, the Phillippines controls at least 3, or that Vietname controls over 30. All of these are militarily occupied. Intentional half-truths are propaganda.
projecting the US’s own world view
Yashad Rizvi – I’m British, you idiot. My middle name is Sidney, which is hardly a name people tend to trot out these days
What’s your point by the way?
Yashad Rizvi – yes, actually. I’ve been married (in China) for a decade now, I have a house there and plan to retire there. Unfortunately in my line of work its not easy – certainly not at my age – to get regular well-paid employment in China, because although I speak Putonghua, my written Chinese is fairly lame.
And as for the Tibetans and the Uighurs – damned right I would! Their life expectancy, literacy and health has increased immensely over the past 50 years, with the Tibetans no longer serfs to the monks and the residents of Xinjiang no longer dying from cyclical droughts and crop failures. You may not like Communists – ok, I get it, that’s your prerogative – but that’s no excuse for pig-ignorance of the facts: the CCP has done a damned excellent job despite very difficult circumstances and constant interference by the Septics
Yashad Rizvi Hi. I do so love the smell of bigotry in the morning – it smells like…… bullsh1t!
I take it we’re agreed on my points 1 – 6 then, and all that’s left is for you to impotently call me silly names?
Colonialism is a very heavy word that strike at the mind of the colonized people. Of course westerners try to romanticize it as if it is just another phase of history and wanted other to treat it lightly. Colonialism is not buying resources and invest in foreign infrastructure or sending workers to work honestly on those project. Colonialism involved killing the whole village, children included to subdue the strongest minds in the land that even the toughest give in to the brutality and willing to live as slave. Very ugly picture that should never be taken lightly.
Terry Kerr
For centuries at least from the 14th century, China was the most powerful country in the area and had the power to exterminate the natives like the Spanish and Portuguese empires were doing at the time and the US massacre of at least 100,000 Philipinos in 1900. This didn’t happen. Read "East Asia before the West"
https://www.amazon.com/East-Asia-Before-West-Contemporary/dp/0231153198
While you copy and paste the CCP propaganda for 0.5RMB
Andrew S Carter Let’s pretend you’re a Pom, not a wumao. You have the luxury of using facebook, not being judged by the social credit system and have the freedom to criticise both the West and China. Can Chinese do the same ?
Once again I don’t beleive our lot, and I certainly don’t beleive them. You do. That’s my point.
And as for your ‘I’m an expert on China because I lived there for x years’. Well I’ve lived and worked all over the world…. but I was still an entitled expat who didnt face the hardships of the locals.
Syed Fazal Abbas Did Mo’ ride to heaven on a winged pony ? Until the Mohammedans ditch their daft ideas …..
Jason Jean Find the truth by comparing the lies.Trotsky !
Of course the Chinese media lie, just like the West, it’s just your biases allign with theirs.
Andrew S Carter So now you display your bias, married to a tiddly-wink and can’t afford to retire in Blighty.
So slightly bitter to the West.
But returning to China, if you no longer have wealth and status of a job…. well you might find you get treated with less respect.
I actually agree with you about E Turkmenistan and Tibet, like Afghanistan, Communism was an improvement. But what if the people don’t want these ‘improvements’.
The British Empire thought it was bringing Western civilisation to the natives. Was it ? There were some well-meaning admin staff, and some mardy natives. But at the end of the day who is one nation to impose their values on another ?
Andrew S Carter No, I just like pointing out hypocrisy.
1-true
2-So why ‘buzz’ the RN, RAN, USAN, etc
3-Commercial being the operative word, but it’s a choke point for Jap, Ch and Korea. Who controls it controls alot of trade
4-Sure, but China is not just claining the athols, but the entire sea. Be honest about this !
5&6 – so why not negotiate with ALL the claimants. 1 big talkfest, and sort it out once and for all.
But China wants to divide and conquer like a good Empire, then have it all.
Colonies like the Chinese in Malaya ? Or Tibet, E Turkmenistan ?
Yashad Rizvi no seriously. I’ll be the first person to trumpet a lie or a half-truth when I find it. I’ve been looking in the China Daily, CGTN, and the Global Times for years. They’ll report things from a biased perspective, as all media does, but they don’t use half-truths and lies like the BBC, National Post, CBC, Globe & Mail, or The New York Times does when reporting on Chinese news. If you want to see evidence of this, simply take the information I gave you on the South China Sea dispute and look at how these different media all report on it. I knew that western media was suspect before, but when I started reading so many news media daily, I started to see just how shitty western media is. It all comes down to two problems really: 1) when it comes to China, most of them don’t know what they’re talking about, and 2) due to this, they simply regurgitate what they hear from other news sources rather than actually doing any investigative reporting themselves. So one half-truth about China ends up getting copied across almost all western media.
There is a big difference between "bias", "half-truths", and "lies." I know that Trump is trying to make these distinctions fuzzy right now but there are large differences between them.
Yashad Rizvi you need to critically think about these Uighur "disappearances." The western media reports on it moronically, and the Chinese media addresses the situation in great detail. Every western media story claims that people "disappear" into these centers and that it is for an indefinite amount of time. Then they talk about the centers with people who were there, were usually uncooperative, and were released within a few weeks or months. They have no problem finding people who state that people are only in them for weeks to months depending on how cooperative they are. And they never discuss why this is happening.
Xinjiang has had a 30% Han Chinese population since the Ming dynasty, and northern Xinjiang has had a majority Han population for centuries. The Uighurs are native to the southwestern region of Xinjiang but started to migrate to other regions during the Qing dynasty. They lived peacefully with the Han until many started to radicalize and become Islamists. Then in 2009 literally hundreds of Han Chinese, who had never attacked them, were slaughtered by roaming bands of radical Uighurs. As more Han Chinese were killed during this time than at Tiananmen Square in 1989, it could safetly be referred to as a massacure. But as the Chinese government doesn’t want the Chinese to discriminate against Uighurs as a people, they don’t refer to it as a massacure. So they made centers to teach them mandarin, nationalism, and to critique aspects (yes, only violent aspects) of Islam which caused that radicalism. And even people who are uncooperative are released after a few months (by their own admission). It is simply the most enlightened way of dealing with Islamic extremism in world history (the U.S., for example, would either imprison most of the population, like they are doing with their minority populations, or, more likely, kill them like they did their native population).
Yashad Rizvi not meant as an insult at all, i wish that such a large chunk of humanity did not live under fascism esp the oppressed minorities – if it looks like a snake it probably is, if it looks like fascism it probably is
Roko Komboko very naive if you think chinese imperialism/fascism/hegemony will be pleasant
Andrew S Carter By that notion Nazi conduct was ok as carried out under promulgated laws ? (China is fascist but showing Nazi tendencies witht he Turkic filled gulags in E Turkestan)
I see it all now. It’s nothing more benign that China wanting to spread democracy.
I see it all now. It’s nothing more benign that China wanting to spread democracy.