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South China Sea

3K views 17 replies 8 participants last post by  JM101 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Maybe this is the first step before going to the international courts. But even then unless the others step up it certainly will be a mute point. I wonder if behind the scenes if PI is talking to the others. They should be. What if the international court rules against China who will enforce it. Will the Asian countries rely on Russia or the U.S. to help. If the U.S. is called upon will our current government even respond?
 
#3 · (Edited)
The Pentagon is constantly doing "what if" studies, so I would imagine there may be quite a bit of behind the scene positioning or at least some discussion. With all the cutbacks, it's just anybody's wild guess as to what will transpire. Having the US on your side does not have the clout that it used to have so I kind of wonder about quite a bit of it.

Fred
 
#5 ·
Even simple things such as this could have totally unplanned consequences under the present state of affairs. All it would take is for some hot-head to go off half-cocked to turn into something major that could have some serious regrets later. This is multiplied by the number of different Countries involved overall.

And just think of it, We will have front row seats ! ! ! LOL
 
#8 ·
The thing is, China is so big and powerful with the largest military in the world, per man, if they wanted to, they could walk all over Asia and devastate a lot of Asian nations. Who else but the USA, the UK, and a few other countries would join together and fight them. China could treat N Korea like a red headed step child, step on their neck and tell them to shut up or else. The bottom line here is that everything within the Philippine area of responsibility belongs to the Philippines, not to China, This is where the problem lies when countries have different claims with ocean land and island territory. The Philippines is too weak, militarily, to face China alone, it needs the help from other nations in order to insure these fishing areas are not taken away.
 
#9 ·
Ran across another news blurb yesterday afternoon that said that pictures show that the building activity appears to be Military. While I was reading the article, the internet went down here, after the internet came back up I haven't been able to find it again.

Fred
 
#11 ·
When you build an air strip, how does it get different from a civilian one or military one ? ;)

Its the media playing to the gallery

Of course even the air strip in Philippines occupied islands see paf birds Landing ...

As for Philippines being militarily weak, the downfall started with Marcos leaving the country dry having taken out 20 + billion apart from passing all state ventures to his friends, and when he was kicked out, the followers, starting from Cory (who has Chinese blood ... and was proud of it.. ) and the Chinese oligarchs had no interest to beef up the forces, end the internal civil strifes - NPA, MILF, BIFF, ASG, and what nots - and the Chinese oligarchs have managed to influence the policy makers from not spending too much on military and offers China, as, most of the Chinese oligarchs major investments are in China

And beyond comprehension, China has of late taken direct or indirect control over some of the major infrastructures and such in Philippines, including a major cargo operation, through their known proxies (and that's not an imaginary story ..)

And the way the post Edsa constitution was formed guarantees that a vast portion of national income goes to pork barrel, so why would the senators and congressman stop their non stop flow of billions of peso of free cash with next to no accounting required, by asked to divert it to military spending ?

And while people loudly claim Marcos had a strong air force, in reality, late 1970s the military was in shambles. And the non stop spending of the missus only bled the country more.

I hope the long timers here know even the armed forces were running their own corruption scheme, skimming a lot of money, purportedly to their own private retirement fund, and statistics say nearly every armed force officer knew about it but kept quite about the nearly half skimmed.money, money allocated for purchase and upgrades, because nobody wanted to lose out the common retirement fund

Rumour has it the illegal retirement fund was never dismantled and even now part of armed forces budget supposedly gets skimmed. Hence the purchase of used Uh1, used armoured cars, used IFVs, or polish helicopters - for the army, while the president flies on brand new Bell 412s.

Anything more I need say ?

In short the past rulers of Philippines have spun a complicated messy web of lies and stuff, and have got no way out of it.

Most smart Filipino knows about it, but dare not talk about it loudly because talking against any powerful man or family always finds a person's life span reduced promptly.

So nothing's gonna happen, people pretend to be scared of China, and China will pretend to be annoyed but at the same time very benevolent to Philippines and life will go on as normal.
 
#10 ·
#14 ·
You also forgot to add that India is stepping into the mix. They are now assisting Vietnam in funding their military as they see the "Freedom of Navigation" as a National Interest also.

So now we have India in the west and Japan in the east with strong economies funding military assistance in this matter.

You also forgot to mention that even though Japan has no direct treaties for the South China Sea countries, they are actively engaged in the defense of the Freedom of Navigation rights as it is in their interest too.
 
#17 ·
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