FPI / September 5, 2024
Geostrategy-Direct
By Richard Fisher
China is on its way to securing control of the South China Sea, which would be an utter disaster for the democracies and not just for the obvious reasons.
Such dominance would also help to secure the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) global strategic military projection and strategic projection into space, that would in turn secure the CCP’s ambition for political-military hegemony on Earth.
The CCP wants to secure Hainan Island as a base for its nuclear ballistic missile submarines that can strike targets in the United States, and for its future nuclear powered aircraft carriers that will project CCP power globally, as it also uses the Wencheng Satellite Launch Base on Hainan to launch its missions to the Moon to control the Earth-Moon System.
But China’s ability to pose such a threat has been made possible by serial weakness from the United States, the Philippines and other democracies: In 1991 China bribed Philippine Senators to reject a new military bases treaty with the United States; In January 1995 Manila only protested, while its American ally did nothing as China took over Mischief Reef, just over 200 miles away from the Philippine island of Palawan, closest to the Spratly Island region disputed with China.
By 2015 China has succeeded in turning Mischief Reef, Subi Reef and Fiery Cross reef into full fledged air-naval-missile and ground troop bases to secure control of the vital sea lanes of the South China Sea and then to assist in hosting thousands of troops for invasion or punitive raids against Palawan.
Again, while the Philippines and then U.S. protested, they did nothing substantial to force China to reverse its illegal territorial aggrandizement, all of which has emboldened the CCP to conduct its current campaign of escalating pressure on Manila to abandon its outpost on Second Thomas Shoal, an ex-U.S. Navy World War Two landing ship tank (LST) beached in 1999 in response to China’s occupation of Mischief Reef.
On Aug. 31 on nearby Sabina Shoal (Xianbian Jiao) Chinese Coast Guard ships three times rammed the Philippine Coast Guard Ship BRP Teresa Magbanua, and then gave the world on CCP state media Global Times a brazen lie: “At 12:06, the Philippine ship deliberately rammed into the Chinese ship 5205 in an unprofessional and dangerous manner, causing a collision for which the Philippines bears full responsibility.”
Video posted that day by the Philippine Coast Guard established beyond any doubt that it was the Chinese Coast Guard ships rammed the Philippine ship, and that the presence of about ten Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships around the BRP Teresa Magbuana.
China’s chilling lie, and its including a PLAN tug in its Coast Guard aggression fleet, all suggests that China was contemplating doing much greater damage to the Philippine ship and then towing it out to deeper waters to sink.
And this was but the umpteenth example of CCP bullying and aggression against the Philippines ...
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