China About to Run into the U.S.

Gordon Lubold and Jeremy Page in today's Wall Street Journal [U.S. Sees New Flashpoint in South China Sea Dispute]  point to a recent development in the Chinese expansion of control over the South China Sea.  While most countries see this as a sea lane issue, I tend to see it as part of a Crimea-like takeover of Taiwan.  The Chinese are far more patient than the Russians and do things in small increments without causing a lot of trouble with the countries of the world.  If they control the sea lanes around Taiwan, they can control it.  They started with the East China Sea, which everyone has already forgotten about, and have gradually expanded their controls to the whole area.  [ see Defense Department graphic at http://www.southchinasea.org/files/2013/03/Sovereignty-claims_in_the_south_china_sea-US-DoD-2012.png ]

Jay Batongbacal,  with the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative [Scarborough Shoal:  A Red Line? http://amti.csis.org/scarborough-shoal-red-line/]  says the next area of concern for the U.S. is the bunch of atolls about 120 miles off the coast of the Philippines.  The Chinese have sent some survey ships to that area and may be looking to build out the another military base on land claimed by the Philippines.  China ran the Philippines out of that area in 2012, without much protest from the U.S. even though the U.S. has a mutual defense treaty that should have applied there.   The difference between this area and the Spratlys is that a treaty between the U.S. and the Philippines says the U.S. will "defend not only the Philippine metropolitan territory, but also 'island territories under its jurisdiction.' [Batongbacal].  The U.S. gave these islands away after the Philippines declared independence in 1946.

The Chinese ambition in this region is playing out because the U.S. has done little to deter them since they started their buildup.  Only in the last few years has anyone finally realized what they were up to there.  We only have to pull back to a world view of the region to see that China is not content with the control it currently has over the entire region.  It wants more than that, and it may be too late to stop them from having it.