The Little Island that Could

China has managed to put a runway about the same size as the main runway at Dulles Airport, in the Washington suburbs, on two little islands that used to be no more than crops of land slightly above the water.  They built islands on them, manufacturing new territory.  They are not in the suburbs where most commercial airports are built;  they are in the middle of the South China Sea, closer to Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam than to China.  China is telling us not to worry.  [ see story by Demetri Sevastopulo, FT Weekend, 17-18 January 2016 ]

As I said in my first book, The Chinese Information War, China lays out a plan to do what it says it will do, then does it - without anyone else's permission.  For those who don't think beyond the next election, this kind of long-term strategy works pretty well.  We have complained about this build-up in the South China Sea for at least five years when the Chinese sent ships to tangle with the U.S. Navy in the very same area where those islands are being built.  That was not very effective at keeping them from their goal.

In case you might be wondering what the Chinese said about this build-up, besides "don't worry about it", then you might look to their claims there.  They claim the islands and the South China Sea as their territorial waters.  If you fly near to those islands, like the BBC did a few months ago, warning notices are given in English.  More than 1000 miles from Beijing, and behind the lines for Taiwan, they are claiming the land, air and water as theirs.  These areas are in dispute, not with the United States, but with Vietnam and the Philippines neither of which are very big and not up the test of stopping the Chinese from doing what they have said they will do.  What we should worry about is Taiwan.

Taiwan has just elected a woman who wants to move away from dependency on China, at a time when they are likely to become part of China in the same way Russia took Crimea. Unless the Chinese were sleeping they did not miss the Free World's passing on the Crimea takeover.  China is probably assuming they better move quickly before somebody new gets into the White House.  China tells the US not to worry because it isn't this White House that would worry if China takes Taiwan.  It would be a problem for the next.  That is why long-term thinking is always better than the way we do things.  It most books that is called strategy, which seems to be lacking in both parties in contention.