You Can’t Always Be Friends

The Philippines, according to Reuters, is having problems with China again, in the same place, the Spratly Islands,  it went to the UN Arbitration Panel for resolution.  The UN decision favored them, but China ignored it and denied the UN had any right to rule on it.  The Chinese are militarizing a man-made island near Fiery Cross Reef, something those of us in the US have been following for many years.  Those pesky satellites can make it very hard to hide soldiers and airman who have been in and out of the place for at least 5 years.  It has suddenly come to the attention of people in the Philippines who filed their complaint about the same time.

China describes this in their usual way:  “We are defending our territory.”  It is a natural thing to do, if it is your territory, which it is not.  One of the things the UN said was that this building of islands is taking territory China does not own away from its rightful owner, and interfering with the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone.  No wonder China didn’t like the decision.  They paid off the Philippines ruler by pouring money into his hometown, and tried to pretend the whole thing would blow over.  Something must have happened to bring up the issue again.  It didn’t originate in the Philippines, which says China is doing pretty much what they said when they promised not to reclaim anymore islands.  The Philippines will file a diplomatic protest for the militarization of the islands, which is about the only thing duller than dirt.

I’m reading Crashback, by Michael Fabey, which is about the navies of the US and China in the South China Sea.  It is interesting if you are into navy ships and combat capabilities in that part of the world.  It reminded me that this isn’t a game that the Chinese have just invented.  They have built up their navies at a time we have phased ours down.  As they do so, they are coming closer to real confrontation that will be explosive.  The Chinese have a few more hotheads who lack the discipline to operate in confined spaces without making mistakes.  That will eventually lead to something more than a Cold War standoff.

China keeps pushing North Korea into this, reminding the US that this is not about navy ships fighting navy ships.  It is about real war.  They push this limit all the time, in an effort to find out what they can get from it.  North Korea wants to settle with the South for a little while, but that won’t last very long.  They have been raising that water temperature for 60 years now.  You would think that frog could figure out he was being cooked.