Speaking today at the Center for a New American Security, Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken stepped up hostile rhetoric against China, lashing their island building in the South China Sea as a ‘threat to peace and stability,” and terming it a “transgression” akin to Russia’s support for Eastern Ukrainian rebels.
Blinken insisted the world would unite against China for building the islands, and demanded that China freeze all activities in the region “in accordance with the rule of law.”
While China’s claim to the region in which the islands are being built is disputed, there is nothing within international law to preclude China from building new islands outside of its own territorial waters at any rate. The US has condemned the construction repeatedly, and deployed warships and military drones to “challenge” the construction.
China is one of several nations with overlapping claims in the South China Sea, and while the US is nominally neutral on the matter, they have in practice backed everyone’s claims except for China’s. China has insisted they are nearly completed with their building at any rate, so the latest round of US demands to stop are likely just an attempt to take credit for it when the halt finally happens.
Ironically, the US government's own definition of terrorism includes a claim to the legitimacy of any islands we chose to construct. I'm not finding the link right now, but I remember reading it.
Since there are in fact no "Eastern Ukrainian rebels", only Russian contractors' mercenaries trying to pass themselves off as "rebels", the Chinese will probably get the message that US "anger" is just shadow boxing to create the illusion that Obama's pivot is a "confrontation" with China, as the neocon propaganda machine is trying to claim. Creating that illusion suits both Obama and China perfectly well.
The State Department, supposedly the benign tool of American foreign policy in charge of diplomacy, is more hawkish than the Department of Defense.
It's also like the settlers in the West Bank!!!
Called China Sea not San Francisco Bay
Whenever I run across a comment from anyone at DOS who brazenly make any reference at all to other countries acting "…in accordance with the rule of law.” I stop reading. I put that in the same category as a politician today who claims they care about the middle class and the needy which nowadays are usually the same class of people.
The fact they fail to see the obvious hypocrisy is mind-boggling. But that's just this old curmudgeon's opinion.
Of course the situations are similar. The US wants something in Ukraine and in the south China Sea and somebody is 'interfering' with the plan..
Guess what our drunk on power Joint Chiefs are up to now! We have armed everything but!
Jun 26, 2015 Pentagon Moving to Weaponize Space
Welcome to New World Next Week — the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news.
https://youtu.be/Zw1PIErrTso
I say let them, the islands will not last long anyways. It is a poor investment, when sea levels are rising and the weather is becoming more extreme.