Flash forward to 2015. A hot war breaks out between the US and China. The US goes on the offensive and launches an on going attack using cruise missiles. The attack appeared to be having a effective on the Chinese, until the US ran out of some key electronics for the missile's guidance systems, and the Chinese refused to sell them more.

When President Santorm was told of the problem, he sent Arch Bishop Finn to China to negotiate a deal with the Chinese for the guidance components, so the war with China could continue.

And a little question here. If Santorm does become president do you think he would give the State of the Union Address in Latin, or would he speak it in tongues?

The 'framing' of the upcoming South China Sea power struggle as a 'choice' between the US and China is a bit flawed and incomplete, as the piece fails to mention Australia and Indonesia. Though the two aforementioned countries are not directly abutting said sea, their commercial interests pass through there on a regular basis, and they are not about to leave it unattended. For that matter, the South China Sea is a major shipping lane to such countries as India, the Arab oil states, Thailand, etc.

It is important to focus more on this region and less on Europe. How the next few decades play out is I think still very open. China is if anything cautious and capable of great restraint. The worry for me is the narrow, racist and arrogant aspect of the U.S. approach to international relations. God knows and thousands of graves, how murderous, wrong , incompetent , foolish and wasteful the U.S. policies tend to be when guided by militarist, evangelicals and super wealthy private interests. But the real test will come from more god like forces; physical earth's blowback and massive pressure from exploding populations.

“There are challenges facing the Caribbean right now that demand China's leadership (and the 21st century will be) China's Caribbean century,” declared Xi Xaoping prior to the APEC summit in Hawaii last November (Xinhua, Nov 19).

Do you think such a statement would have raised alarms in D.C? The world is not demanding American leadership (a misleading term that actually translates into 'U.S. corporate dominance') but rather begging the U.S. to stop threatening the world with military might. More and more people are waking up to the fact that the U.S. is no longer a functioning democracy and instead it is ruled by a handful of wealthy people that have convinced a large segment of the population that their 'Dear Leader' (Uncle Sam) can do no wrong.

This article substantively misrepresents the actual situation in the South China Sea. First, China's claims are not a "matter of national pride" they are a total recent invention, dating from the 1930s, have no precedent in Chinese history, and represent a matter of national territorial expansion. "Pride" doesn't enter into it; they are purely expansionist. The famous "cow's tongue" map easily shows this; the Chinese recently extended their claim another 80 kms closer to Palawan Island in the Philippines. Needless to say there is no legal, historical, or cultural basis for these claims.

In pursuit of this expansion China has engaged in numerous acts of violence -- in the 1970s it attacked Vietnamese islands in the South China Sea and evicted centuries old occupants. It regularly seizes scores of Vietnamese fishing boats. When its boats are seized for illegal fishing gunboats that accompany its fishing vessels have threatened to attack coast guard craft of other nations. It harasses and attacks survey vessels of other nations in international waters and has put pressure on foreign companies doing oil and gas exploration there. It has threatened war over its desire to annex the islands in the South China Sea.

Second, the US was not much involved here until Chinese belligerence began to seriously alarm everyone around the South China Sea. Hanoi had begged the US for years to get involved, without any effect. Thanks to the criminal and stupid wars in the Middle East, the US Asia drift during the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration's shift in the last few years represents a response to the desire for regional players to have a counterweight to China. The idea that the poor put-upon nations of the South China Sea are having to choose between the US and China is false; they are delighted to have the US in the picture, because it insists on multilateral rather than bilateral action and also insists on following the law of the sea and long established principles of navigation. You might claim that these are cover for hegemonic action and I would agree, but most South China Sea states would prefer the US as a regional hegemon (it has no territorial claims) and many of them have formal and informal alliances with the US (like Philippines, with which the US a defense treaty). Not all hegemonic action is negative.

This is a poorly written article whose only positive feature is the nice picture of the South China Sea. But I already have many of those....

Michael Turton
The View from Taiwan

The author of the original article has little to offer. Michael Turton committed errors of historical facts and current affairs. I would like to provide some background and a better perspective for fellow visitors to Commondreams. A present day nation called China inherited an empire which they are determined to keep so that a country of 1.3 billion can survive. Consider the size of the population it is a resource-poor country.

Old empires like the Ottoman Empire got broken up because the component parts were former powerful ethnic, political and cultural entities. The declining imperial Turks could no longer hold the Arabs, Persians etc together. The Russian Empire has a small population of ethnic Russians. As such it may or may not survive in tact. Other imperial countries have worked to break up the old Chinese empire like they did to the the Ottomans, the Russians and others. They failed with China because of the following reasons. The Chinese have sinicised nearly all of the 56 diverse ethnic groups, more or less over the centuries. The Tibetans and the Muslim Uigurs remain distinct from the rest because for centuries the majority of the Chinese population, because of the great distances separating them, have little to do with their fellow "Emperor's Subjects" in Tibet and Xinjiang, except for a lttle bit of trade. Later day imperial power like the British in British India and the Tzaris Russians did try, but only half-heartedly, to pry Tibet and Xinjiang from China simply because the stake was not high enough. They gave up. The Japanese tried very hard with a huge chunk of China in the North-east called Manchuria but they were beaten off.

The West will not give up on Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang if only as a means to hold back China or to extract more concession in other spheres from China. We all know very well that the small population in Tibet and Xinjiang are not going to give us a "Lybia" or another "Afghanistan". But South China Sea is something else. We have an incomparable navy and we can make pure hell over their for China.

South China Sea was a name given to that piece of water by the West during the colonial era. Those contested islands in the South China Sea were given names like Spratly Islands, Esparadoes, etc by the Western imperial powers. However, each of the islands has a Chinese name in ancient Chinese maps and of course they did claim them as their own, justifiable or not remains to be seen. In the meantime, it was the American controlled South Vietnamese government that tried to occupy some of the islands for reasons best known to the Pentagon, that resulted in a minor naval clash between China and Vietnam. Those island are in the South China Sea but the Chinese have repeatedly declared that the piece of water is an international water and she does not threaten USA's right of access which Hillary Clinton made so much of. The Chinese clashed with USA spy ships and Japanese naval vessels because the American spy ships have gotten too close to or have entered Chnese territorial waters, and the Japanese have entered disputed territorial water around the disputed island called Senkaku/Diaoyutai.

China have openly declared that she would co-exploit and share whatever resources in the disputed territories with her neighbours. But to be sure, all this would be under China's leadershp. In the meantime, China has not one single oil rig in that area while the Vietnamese have sunk 300 bore-holes in cooperation with major western oil conglomerates and have pumped oils for the last few years. Things become sticky when Americans under Hillary Clinton wants to play "Big Brother" or "Big Uncle" in trying to lead the small nations there in a confrontation with China over territorial claims. China now has the strength, (or so they thought), not to "cry uncle" this time around. I think they would match us threat for threat, sabotage for sabotage, arm-twisting for arm-twisting, in the days to come. And the arena for this contest will be global. While we can exploit our old friendships with countries in South and East Asia, they can work against us with their new found friends in South America, Africa, Middle East, etc.

Its a business fight.
Military threateners are losers.

michael *i'm a long time progressive* turton
* they are delighted to have the US in the picturebecause it insists on multilateral rather than bilateral action*

firstly, amerikka *has no claim in the scs * as per michael turton
secondly its 9000 miles away from home
so pray tell,
what biz has it to *insist* on how the claimants should resolve the dispute ?

*and also insists on following the law of the sea and long established principles of navigation.* [sic]

true to form,
amerikka, didnt ratified the unclos, but wanna be its enforcer [sic]
like wise, amerikka announce its above the jurisdiction of the icc,but would send its cat paw , nato, to haul anyone running afoul of the *washington consensus* to face trial at that kangaroo court

know whats wrong with this world turton
THE CRIMINALS ARE HOLDING COURT

* It [china] harasses and attacks survey vessels of other nations in international waters * [sic]

care to supply source to back up ur claim , just for once ?

to the best of my knowledge, the only certified high sea pirate is none other than the current self appointed *enforcer* of the unclos
u just cant make this up hehehe
http://tinyurl.com/29l9k6n