How & Why China is building islands in the South China Sea -- Build up to WW3

China is building islands in the South China sea and its causing disputes among the other nations in the region; Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The US has many allies in the region and uses its massive Navy to patrol international waters, keeping shipping lanes open for trade China claims they aren't military bases, but their actions say otherwise. China has been building manmade bases over some of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea since 2014, much to the annoyance of other powers in the region—the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Japan all lay claim to parts of the sea, which is a valuable trade passage and fishing ground. On Monday the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) confirmed the completion of another Chinese man-made island, China's Fiery Cross Island, and the new land is now ready for use as a military base. The U.S. estimates China has added 3,200 acres of land on seven features (which includes rocky outcrops and reefs) over the past three years, although China denies it is militarizing the islands it has built. Last week, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that the defense equipment on the islands was there to maintain "freedom of navigation". Fiery Cross reef, once merely a mass of rocks and a coral reef, now has a runway and several other buildings, including basketball courts and a running track. The island joins several other military bases in the South China Sea, adding extra aerial capacity to existing naval resources and mobile missile launchers. China claimed they were developing the islands for navigational purposes. Some of the islands do have lighthouses to ease ships through the lethal necklaces of rocky outcrops, but several are now evidently military bases. Though the position of the islands may have navigational benefits, Alessio Patalano, senior lecturer in Asian security and war studies at King's College London, says that China's choice of location reveals more about their aims on other fronts. The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Karimata and Malacca straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 square kilometres (1,400,000 sq mi). The sea carries tremendous strategic importance; one-third of the world's shipping passes through it, carrying over $3 trillion in trade each year, it contains lucrative fisheries, which are crucial for the food security of millions in Southeast Asia. Huge oil and gas reserves are believed to lie beneath its seabed. According to International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) Limits of Oceans and Seas, 3rd edition (1953), it is located . south of China; east of Vietnam; west of the Philippines; east of the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, up to the Strait of Singapore in the western, and north of the Bangka Belitung Islands and Borneo However, in its unapproved draft 4th edition (1986), IHO proposed the Natuna Sea, thus the South China Sea southern boundary was shifted northward, from north of the Bangka Belitung Islands to north and northeast of Natuna Islands. The minute South China Sea Islands, collectively an archipelago, number in the hundreds. The sea and its mostly uninhabited islands are subject to competing claims of sovereignty by several countries. These claims are also reflected in the variety of names used for the islands and the sea. The South China Sea is an extremely significant body of water in a geopolitical sense. It is the second most used sea lane in the world, while in terms of world annual merchant fleet tonnage, over 50% passes through the Strait of Malacca, the Sunda Strait, and the Lombok Strait. Over 1.6 million m³ (10 million barrels) of crude oil a day are shipped through the Strait of Malacca, where there are regular reports of piracy, but much less frequently than before the mid-20th century. The region has proven oil reserves of around 1.2 km³ (7.7 billion barrels), with an estimate of 4.5 km³ (28 billion barrels) in total. Natural gas reserves are estimated to total around 7,500 km³ (266 trillion cubic feet). A 2013 report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration raised the total estimated oil reserves to 11 billion barrels.[24] In 2014 China began to drill for oil in waters disputed with Vietnam. The area in question is known as Vanguard Bank and which Vietnam officials claim lies within their country's 200-mile exclusive economic zone. China, however, disputes this fact. According to studies made by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Philippines, this body of water holds one third of the entire world's marine biodiversity, thereby making it a very important area for the ecosystem. However the fish stocks in the area are depleted, and countries are using fishing bans as a means of asserting their sovereignty claims. Indonesia's maritime waters have been breached by fishing fleets from Vietnam and the Philippines leading to said ships being seized and sunk by Indonesian authorities.[28] China announced in May 2017 a breakthrough for mining methane clathrates, when they extracted methane from hydrates in the South China Sea. Several countries have made competing territorial claims over the South China Sea. Such disputes have been regarded as Asia's most potentially dangerous point of conflict. Both the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, commonly known as Taiwan) claim almost the entire body as their own, demarcating their claims within what is known as the nine-dotted line, which claims overlap with virtually every other country in the region. Competing claims include: Indonesia, China, and Taiwan over waters NE of the Natuna Islands The Philippines, China, and Taiwan over Scarborough Shoal. Vietnam, China, and Taiwan over waters west of the Spratly Islands. Some or all of the islands themselves are also disputed between Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The Paracel Islands are disputed between China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam over areas in the Gulf of Thailand. Singapore and Malaysia along the Strait of Johore and the Strait of Singapore. China and Vietnam have both been vigorous in prosecuting their claims. China (various governments) and South Vietnam each controlled part of the Paracel Islands before 1974. A brief conflict in 1974 resulted in 18 Chinese and 53 Vietnamese deaths, and China has controlled the whole of Paracel since then. The Spratly Islands have been the site of a naval clash, in which over 70 Vietnamese sailors were killed just south of Chigua Reef in March 1988. Disputing claimants regularly report clashes between naval vessels. ASEAN in general, and Malaysia in particular, have been keen to ensure that the territorial disputes within the South China Sea do not escalate into armed conflict. As such, Joint Development Authorities have been set up in areas of overlapping claims to jointly develop the area and divide the profits equally without settling the issue of sovereignty over the area. This is true particularly in the Gulf of Thailand. Generally, China has preferred to resolve competing claims bilaterally,[31] while some ASEAN countries prefer multilateral talks,[32] believing that they are disadvantaged in bilateral negotiations with the much larger China and that because many countries claim the same territory only multilateral talks could effectively resolve the competing claims. The overlapping claims over Pedra Branca or Pulau Batu Putih including the neighboring Middle Rocks by both Singapore and Malaysia were settled in 2008 by the International Court of Justice, awarding Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore and the Middle Rocks to Malaysia. In July 2010, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for China to resolve the territorial dispute. China responded by demanding the US keep out of the issue. This came at a time when both countries had been engaging in naval exercises in a show of force to the opposing side, which increased tensions in the region.[citation needed] The US Department of Defense released a statement on August 18 where it opposed the use of force to resolve the dispute, and accused China of assertive behaviour.[34] On July 22, 2011, one of India's amphibious assault vessels, the INS Airavat which was on a friendly visit to Vietnam, was reportedly contacted at a distance of 45 nautical miles (83 km) from the Vietnamese coast in the disputed South China Sea on an open radio channel by a vessel identifying itself as the Chinese Navy and stating that the ship was entering Chinese waters.[35][36] The spokesperson for the Indian Navy clarified that as no ship or aircraft was visible from INS Airavat it proceeded on her onward journey as scheduled. The Indian Navy further clarified that "[t]here was no confrontation involving the INS Airavat. India supports freedom of navigation in international waters, including in the South China Sea, and the right of passage in accordance with accepted principles of international law. These principles should be respected by all." In September 2011, shortly after China and Vietnam had signed an agreement seeking to contain a dispute over the South China Sea, India's state-run explorer, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) said that its overseas investment arm ONGC Videsh Limited had signed a three-year deal with PetroVietnam for developing long-term cooperation in the oil sector and that it had accepted Vietnam's offer of exploration in certain specified blocks in the South China Sea.[38] In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu issued a protest.[39][40] The spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India responded by saying that “The Chinese had concerns but we are going by what the Vietnamese authorities have told us and have conveyed this to the Chinese.” The Indo-Vietnamese deal was also denounced by the Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times. Subi Reef being built by China and transformed into an artificial island, 2015 In 1999, Taiwan claimed the entirety of the South China Sea islands under the Lee Teng-hui administration. The entire subsoil, seabed and waters of the Paracels and Spratlys are claimed by Taiwan. In 2012 and 2013, Vietnam and Taiwan butted heads against each other over anti-Vietnamese military exercises by Taiwan. In May 2014, China established an oil rig near the Paracel Islands, leading to multiple incidents between Vietnamese and Chinese ships. In December 2018, retired Chinese admiral Luo Yuan proposed that a possible solution to tensions with the United States in the South China Sea would be to sink one or two United States Navy aircraft carriers to break US morale.Also in December 2018, Chinese commentator and Senior Colonel in the People's Liberation Army Air Force, Dai Xu suggested that China's navy should ram United States Navy ships sailing in the South China Sea. The US, although not a signatory to UNCLOS, has maintained its position that its naval vessels have consistently sailed unhindered through the South China Sea and will continue to do so.At times US warships have come within the 12 nautical-mile limit of sovereign Chinese islands (such as the Paracel Islands), arousing China's ire.During the US Chief of Naval Operations' visit to China in early 2019, he and his Chinese counterpart worked out rules of engagement, whenever American warships and Chinese warships met up on the high seas. In January 2013, the Philippines formally initiated arbitration proceedings against China's claim on the territories within the "Nine-Dash Line" that includes the Spratly Islands, which it said is unlawful under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration backed the Philippines, saying that there was no evidence that China had historically exercised exclusive control over the waters or resources, hence there was "no legal basis for China to claim historic rights" over the nine-dash line. The tribunal also criticized China's land reclamation projects and its construction of artificial islands in the Spratly Islands, saying that it had caused "severe harm to the coral reef environment". It also characterized Taiping Island and other features of the Spratly Islands as "rocks" under UNCLOS, and therefore are not entitled to a 200-nautical-mile (370 km) exclusive economic zone. China however rejected the ruling, calling it "ill-founded".Taiwan, which currently administers Taiping Island, the largest of the Spratly Islands, also rejected the ruling China has built new military facilities on islands in the South China Sea, a US think tank reported on Thursday, a move that could raise tensions with Washington, which has accused Beijing of militarising the vital waterway. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, part of Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said new satellite images show missile shelters and radar and communications facilities under construction on Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi Reefs in the Spratly Islands. The United States has criticised China’s build-up of military facilities on the artificial islands and is concerned they could be used to restrict free movement through the South China Sea, an important trade route. A US Navy warship sailed within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef last month in a so-called freedom of navigation operation, the first such challenge to Beijing’s claim to most of the waterway since US President Donald Trump took office. China has denied US charges that it is militarising the sea, which also is claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Trump has sought China’s help in reining in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes and tension between Washington and Beijing over military installations in the South China Sea could complicate those efforts. China has built four new missile shelters on Fiery Cross Reef to go with the eight already on the artificial island. Mischief and Subi each have eight shelters. China had nearly finished building structures to house long-range surface-to-air missiles on the three islands in February. On Mischief Reef, a very large antennae array is being installed that presumably boosts Beijing’s ability to monitor the surroundings, the installation should be of concern to the Philippines due to its proximity to an area claimed by Manila. A large dome recently was installed on Fiery Cross and another is under construction, indicating a sizeable communications or radar system. Two more domes are under construction at Mischief Reef. A smaller dome has been installed near the missile shelters on Mischief, “indicating that it could be connected to radars for any missile systems that might be housed there . “Beijing can now deploy military assets, including combat aircraft and mobile missile launchers, to the Spratly Islands at any time”.




The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more