So far China is building bases and, according to one Filipino official, only “controls” seven percent of the South China Sea. China is not yet trying to enforce its claims although it is increasingly vocal about other nations for “violating Chinese territorial waters.” This includes non-military force to prevent non-Chinese (especially Filipino) fishing boats from operating in traditional (and legally Filipino) fishing grounds. President Duterte sought to negotiate a deal with China that would compensate the Philippines for lost access to their fishing areas. That was blocked by Filipinos invoking the constitution and its prohibitions against officials negotiating away those rights without assent of the people (the national legislature).Ironically, this could have been stopped when China started their shenanigans, but then President PNoy (Aquino) was pressured by the Obama administration to take it to the UN courts and keep quiet when China bullied our fishermen. We won in court, but as the saying goes, who is going to bell the cat?
This affects not only the countries nearby being threatened by the Chinese, but also it enables China from blocking ships to Japan and Korea from Europe and the Middle East.
Presumably no one in the Obama state department could read a map, so they assumed it was just a local fight.
and it's not just the weak Philippines being threatened: Russia and China held "military exercizes" and entered South Korean airspace.
Both Russia and China have claims on islands now held by Korea and Japan, and their cooperation will annoy the Americans.
In the meanwhile, Trumpieboy essentially says: we are tired of being the world policemen. You are big boys: handle it yourself. And most Americans, seeing these countries get rich while dissing us for guarding them, agree.
But Russia is actually stupid here: China also is pushing in on Pakistan and Russia's ex soviet states in central Asia (aka the "icky stans"). And of course, they used to own Siberia, and right now are invading (via businessmen and migrant workers) Eastern Siberia.
but of course, China blames the US for undermining global security.
SteveGreen on Instapundit has a lot of links about China's infiltration of US companies and universities and even "green" advisers to the Government.
Yes, and Hollywood (no Taiwan patch for Maverick, although unlike the Hollywood left, they do allow patriotism to be seen as a good thing) and they hacked my Federal OPM file awhile back and the Obama administration pretended it was ordinary thieves who did it.
but the scariest part of his post is quoting war reporter Michael Yon, who is visiting Hong Kong and says that China is flaming hatred against other countries, mainly Japan but also the US, that could burst into another war, but that Hong Kong, which still has some freedom and the heritage of British rule of law, is pushing back against their aggressive take over and could be a tipping point.
The conflict in Hong Kong is not about the Extradition Bill — and now many other issues are piling up almost weekly. The issue is that Communist China is trying to swallow and digest Hong Kongers who know the taste of freedom.
...The British helped Hong Kongers taste freedom, and rule of law, and Hong Kongers love their freedom and legitimate judicial system. They will fight. The real fight is beginning.
Honk Kong is a key battle ground in a much larger war. Taiwan and others are watching.”
-----------
by the way, at the end of the SP article, they remind you why Duterte is still popular, despite the war of the left and "human rights" folks against him: We are safer.
As I wrote before, his "war on the press" is actually against Rappler who is funded by suspected CIA related fronts. The bishops prefer to lament dead drug dealers while they get photo ops with crooked politicians, and the bad news is that the crooked politicians tend to win in court, and the human rights type back them instead of trying to figure out how they got so rich (i.e. DeLima and GMA).
well, the CIA might be trying to get rid of Duterte because the American girl lost the election, and he is trying to make nice with China. It's almost enough to make one believe in conspiracy theories.
------------------
update: StrategyPage on the Chinese theft of intellectual property, including computer chips etc that they then sell to Iran.
Despite official sanction support, China has always been the ultimate source of forbidden military and nuclear research items for Iran. This included Western gear, especially stuff from the United States that the rapidly growing Chinese economy had legitimate buyers for. These American items are usually obtained by Chinese trading companies, who served as a one-stop-shopping source for many countries. The trading companies break American laws when they ship some types of restricted (by American regulations) gear to embargoed nations. This is done using forged documents and bribes that can mask these operations for years. These Chinese exporters have little fear of punishment at home because the Chinese government refuses to discipline its wayward firms. But these trading/smuggling companies can be hurt in other ways. That’s because U.S. regulators can reach just about every other country (even China) using the enormous U.S. presence in the international banking system. But the Chinese traders consider occasional fines and business interruption a cost-of-doing-business and pass these extra costs onto customers like Iran. Thus as the sanctions on Iran grow more formidable, prices Iran must pay go up and the Chinese profits increase even more.
No comments:
Post a Comment