4 ms·
Good analysis. Realistically, no entity, government or otherwise is taking any concrete steps to say no to China in the south China Sea. Doing "drive bys" is
by jruthers 6y ago
Good analysis.
Realistically, no entity, government or otherwise is taking any concrete steps to say no to China in the south China Sea.
Doing "drive bys" is hardly actual action, like say dismantling a Chinese base made in international waters. THAT would be concrete action, and I bet they would get all upset but ultimately do nothing (unless it's too Australia, in which case they'll find some other product to ban).
If nobody is going to stand up to them, it's all over already. In a generation, people will just say "oh isn't that all China's territory?"
- hvdfhbj 6y agoOne very simple action that we should be doing is changing the name of the "South China Sea" to something else.
- platinumrad 6y agoWho is "we" here?
- hvdfhbj 6y agoThe rest of the world... but since "South China Sea" is an English name I think a consensus among the English-speaking countries would suffice.
- platinumrad 6y agoSad that yellow peril alarmism with no basis in reality is what counts as "good analysis" when the orange website talks about China.
- yorwba 6y agoIt's not the whole orange website, just two people who happen to agree in shared ignorance. You shouldn't take that to mean that everyone here thinks the same.
- jruthers 6y agoIt's not "yellow peril" or "Orientalism" to criticise China or its foreign policy. It is legitimate to criticise a nation state based on their behaviour, foreign policy, etc. I criticise the US or "western" countries plenty, just not on the top of expansionism in the south China Sea. My point above is that no power is doing anything of substance about China expanding and laying a tacit claim out to the nine dash line, and that in a generation, give or take, it will be taken for granted that the region is China's territory. Granted, this is beyond the scope of the article, namely fishing in that region, but the article suggested (though did not state, and may well have not intended) that some of the aggressive Chinese boats were military.
- yorwba 6y ago> It's not "yellow peril" or "Orientalism" to criticise China or its foreign policy. I did not use "yellow peril" or "orientalism", I used "ignorance". I'm not opposed to criticism of China or it's foreign policy, I'm opposed to getting the facts wrong. You say that "no power is doing anything of substance about China expanding and laying a tacit claim out to the nine dash line", which I assume means you are ignorant of the many cases of other countries' coast guards attacking Chinese fishing boats (as linked in other comments), Vietnam subsidizing fishers specifically for fishing in Chinese-controlled but Vietnamese-claimed waters (as mentioned in the article) or the US Navy's "freedom of navigation" operations (also mentioned in the article). There's a narrative circulating in right-wing Chinese blogs that the US plans to use its network of military bases and client states across the western Pacific to neutralize the Chinese fleet while simultaneously launching a land-based invasion across the Korean peninsula and amphibious assaults all along the coast. Hopefully you realize that that's quite an absurd scenario and just a transparent excuse to call for greater military spending. Similarly, it's absurd to claim that there's no opposition to Chinese expansionism, while the overall media consensus is one of opposition and there are many instances where such opposition manifested as actual physical violence. Talking up how strong your enemies are and how no one can stop them is one of the oldest tricks in the military propaganda book. Julius Caesar wrote about how strong and dangerous the Gauls were before he went and conquered all of their territory.
- knolax 6y ago> say no to China in the south China Sea. > people will just say "oh isn't that all China's territory?" You're already doing that. I feel like I'm witnessing a bizzare form of doublethink seeing people refer to a body of water as the "South China Sea" and then becoming outraged that China would lay claim to said body of water named after them.