South China Sea: The US fleet gathered for maneuvers, Beijing is against it
On Thursday, the Financial Times, citing a senior US administration official, reported that the US Navy is preparing to conduct naval exercises within the next two weeks in a 12-mile zone around the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea.
This message was followed by an immediate reaction from China. Hua Chunying, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said: “We hope that the United States will assess the current situation in the South China Sea from an objective and fair point of view, and work with China to play a constructive role in maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea.” .
Translated from diplomatic Chinese, this means: “Yankees, why are you interfering? There is no need to provoke us."
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Information about possible exercises is just one fragment in the overall mosaic of a serious cooling in relations between the United States and China, along with scandals with cyber espionage, manipulation of the yuan exchange rate and the collapse of the Chinese stock exchange, as well as routine accusations of systematic violations of human rights in China.
The logic of global confrontation says that if you miss a blow in one place, then you immediately need to demonstrate strength in another.
Several missed blows in a row, of course, will not lead to a knockout, but a defeat on points is quite possible.
Thus, the Americans managed, albeit at the cost of losing Crimea, to completely establish themselves in Ukraine and stop the counter-offensive of the “Russian World” in the Donbass.
However, having run into the Minsk wall, Putin immediately made a knight’s move and quickly attacked in Syria. Russia here stood on the same side with Iran, and it is the containment of Persian expansion that is today the main goal of US policy in the region. So naval exercises in the South China Sea, the third of the main geopolitical theaters of the current moment, are quite a suitable option for a retaliatory move.
The Spratly Archipelago consists of more than a hundred tiny pieces of land, the largest of which are less than half a square kilometer in area. They have no permanent population, except for Vietnamese, Chinese, Malaysian, Philippine and Taiwanese military garrisons. In addition to these countries, Brunei also claims its fishing zone here. Territorial (if this word is appropriate for atolls) claims to the Spratlys have a long history.
This used to be an atoll, now it's a Chinese airstrip.
They were claimed by everyone who was the main military force in the region. In the 1930th century these were the Spaniards, at the very end of the 1970th century. they, along with Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, went to the Americans. In the 1988s, the dispute over the atolls included China, whose inhabitants had long been engaged in fishing here, France, which considered them as part of its Indochina, and Japan, which began building its empire. After the end of World War II, South Vietnam and the Kuomintang Republic of China voiced their claims, and in the late XNUMXs the Philippines and Malaysia announced their claims. In XNUMX, there was even a naval battle for control of the Spratlys between ships of Vietnam and China, from which the latter emerged victorious.
Tensions continued in the region in subsequent years. However, in recent years, a purely regional conflict has suddenly acquired global significance.
First, it was announced that oil and gas had been found on the islands. In large quantities. And, on the one hand, these resources are so lacking in the gluttonous Chinese economy. On the other hand, where have you seen hydrocarbon deposits discovered and US interests not immediately formed there?
But it's not just about oil. The Americans are very concerned about the growing potential of the Chinese navy, which seriously lays claim to ocean scale, and, therefore, competition with the United States in that part of the world where the Seventh Fleet has long reigned supreme.
If the Chinese finally gain a foothold on the islands, they will turn half of the South China Sea into their own safe haven, which threatens Taiwan, independent of Beijing, the claims to which the PRC has not renounced for a single day. And this is already very serious.
At a recent joint press conference between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Barack Obama, a verbal duel over the islands predictably took place:
Obama: “I conveyed to President Xi our significant concerns about land reclamation, construction and militarization in disputed areas, which make it difficult to peacefully resolve existing differences among countries in the region.”
President Xi: “The islands in the South China Sea have been Chinese territory since ancient times.”
Obama: “I have indicated that the United States will continue to sail, fly and operate anywhere international law allows.”
It seems that the Pentagon has decided to demonstrate the president's latest thesis in practice and do a little swimming and flying. At least, with a leak in the Financial Times, they decided to check the Chinese reaction to the possibility of an American military presence on the “original Chinese islands,” under which oil and gas deposits were very conveniently found.
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