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Be Careful What You Ask For
by James Dunnigan
January 10, 2016

The nations bordering the South China Sea, and the new islands built by China, are creating alliances and trying to persuade more distant and powerful nations (like America and India) to lend some military, or at least diplomatic support to opposing an increasingly aggressive China. Much to China’s dismay such an alliance has formed and grown stronger in 2015. Recently Japan and India formed military ties directed at Chinese aggression while Taiwan, Australia, Japan and Indonesia all created new military agreements with each other. The growth of this alliance has encouraged a reluctant United States to become more involved and aggressive in defying Chinese claims. China set out to create an empire in the South China Sea but has also generated a rapidly growing and aggressive anti-Chinese military alliance. As the old warning goes, be careful what you ask for.

Most worrisome for China are the Japanese plans for an expanded defensive system based on some 200 islands stretching some 1,400 kilometers from southern Japan to Taiwan. This includes multiple anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile launchers backed by a powerful navy and air force as well as world class surface and space based sensors and communications. Over 10,000 troops will be stationed on these islands by the end of the decade, an increase of more than 20 percent. China respects Japanese technology, almost as it much as it does American military gear. But this new Japanese military strategy includes closer military ties with the United States. This is scary for China because while Japan does not have nuclear weapons the United States does and would use them to defend Japan from Chinese attack.

China is openly ignoring the deliberations of the Permanent Court of Arbitration regarding accusations that China is acting illegally with its claims in the South China Sea. That may backfire because most other nations are not ignoring the proceedings. The court will not deliver its final ruling until mid-2016 and already China is finding that all its economic bribes and military threats are not diminishing the growing international condemnation of the Chinese claims. The Philippines, America, Australia, Japan and South Korea openly oppose the Chinese. Other nations in the area (Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and India) were more discrete but just as opposed. The aggressive stance on South China Sea’s claims seems to be working. An American B-52 bomber recently flew over one of the artificial islands China recently built (to strengthen their claims) and China protested this violation of sovereign Chinese territory (which international law and other nations bordering the South China Sea does not support) and the U.S. apologized for the error.

This aggression, especially in the South China Sea and the Indian border, are popular inside China, where the government has increasingly been playing the nationalist card. All Chinese know their recent history. In the 19th century the corrupt and inept imperial government lost control of much of China (Hong Kong, Manchuria, and so on) to better armed and aggressive foreigners. Then the communists took control in 1948 and began to win China some respect. Now China (still run by the communists) is asserting its ancient claims on adjacent areas, like the South China Sea. But those ancient claims also include control of Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines and much of the Russian Far East. Asserting ancient claims is how the two World Wars began but China insists it is merely protecting itself. This was frequently heard before both World Wars began.

China is expanding its power using its considerable economic power. A recent example is Thailand where a 2014 military coup brought to power an unpopular new government. China is taking advantage of this, and the pariah status of the Thai military government in the West, to make itself useful and forge stronger ties with Thailand. While the Chinese economy is in trouble, the Chinese government still has lots of cash to invest in other countries and it has been using this to buy allies. The Thai generals are eager customers. China is making the investments and offering military aid and cooperation. At the moment Thailand has had many of its usual military connections with the West suspended because of Western opposition to the military coup. The generals are not surprised at the Chinese offers and is now rushing out to replace its largely Western weapons and equipment with Chinese models. But there are other ways to cooperate with China in a military sense. This includes intelligence sharing and joint training. Thailand has also won praise in China for arresting and sending back to China pro-democracy advocates who fled persecution in China. The Thais are sending back any Chinese citizens China wants. The latest economic deals include China providing the financing and build a 900 kilometer rail line from Laotian border to the capital (Bangkok). The final price and interest rate are still being negotiated. Meanwhile China has ordered a million tons of rice and 200,000 tons of rubber from Thailand. In September China and Thailand announced a major Chinese investment that would build a high-speed (180 kilometers an hour) rail line from southern China (Kunming) to Bangkok. This would cut the cost of travel (currently mainly by air) for Chinese by more than half and increase the number of Chinese tourists to Thailand by at least two million a year. China would supply most of the $23 billion cost and construction is expected to be complete by 2021. This is part of a larger project to build a “Shanghai to Singapore” high speed rail line. China has always preferred to do business with authoritarian governments since China is still a communist police state. The communism angle has atrophied in China but the police state is thriving. Historically China has rarely been a threat and never a serious one and Thai leaders have always been willing to make deals with the Chinese. Thailand offers diplomatic support for its new friend, which is useful as China takes on a largely hostile world because of claims on most of the South China Sea. China, of course, does not criticize the police-state methods increasingly used in Thailand to deal with political opponents.

After five years of trying the Chinese Navy has finally received permission to establish its first base outside of China. This will be in Djibouti, which lies astride the narrow waterway that is the entrance to the Red Sea and at the north end is the Suez Canal. Chinese trade is a heavy user of the Suez Canal. China does not want access to the canal interrupted by pirates or anything else. One thing that helped get the government to agree to the Djibouti naval base was the air base that Japan opened there in 2011. This was the first overseas Japanese military base since World War II. This was part of the Japanese contribution to the international anti-piracy effort off Somalia. About 200 Japanese troops were stationed at the base.



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