China… the upcoming war: War of control over the sea of China
Syrializm Analytics
Lines of communication between China and the world to transport their goods and get the most important needs, passing from several regions, but the Sea of China remains the most important corridor.
For decades, the United States has been in control of the sea through its military presence in its naval bases and military bases stationed in various countries of the world.
It has always been moving within these areas of its operations without any problems or disputes, but recently escalated China’s condemnation and rejection of the US naval movement in the sea of China.
China’s new Silk Road has land and sea path, and the maritime part is an important and fundamental part of China, which causes a conflict with the United States and even the bordering states.
China today considers itself the owner and value of the sea of China, not the United States.
The problem is that, regardless of the different areas China faces with the United States, the military confrontation between the two countries remains in only one place – the sea of China in Particular the southern part of it.
The Southern sea of China, part of the Pacific Ocean with an area of about 3500 square kilometers, is also known to be bordered by a number of countries.
The most important feature of the Southern sea of China is its large number of small islands, rocky estuaries, coral reefs.
Those areas are disputed by riparian states, namely China, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, the Sultanate of Brunei and Indonesia.
Although all these differences are not new differences between these countries, they’re currently part of the flaming war, although all of these islands in the Southern sea of China are uninhabited and essentially uninhabitable.
The only difference is the rights to navigation and fishing, the confrontations are limited to minor skirmishes from time to time in an almost negligible manner, without reaching the level of major fronting between these countries.
This is evidenced by the fact that no State has resorted to any military action or occupation of any of those islands.
The Southern sea of China gained importance during the Second World War because it was a strategic location in the Pacific War and was the scene of many battles, and with the beginning of the 1970s and the emergence of oil, the importance of this sea increased, and increased importance with the discovery of reserves of natural gas also, the importance of this sea to China with its rise as an economic power and its need not only as an important sea crossing, and even to extract the energy from oil and gas, which are in dire need of it.
The US Energy Information Agency estimates that the Southern sea of China contains an estimated 11 billion barrels and some others have doubled to 22 billion, preliminary estimates.
Natural gas is estimated at 190 trillion cubic meters and other destinations have doubled to close to 300 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.
It should not be forgotten that the Southern sea of China is one of the largest sources of fisheries in the world, which is estimated to account for up to 12 percent of the world’s total fish catch.
The United States estimates the volume of commercial transit across the Straits of Malacca between Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra in both directions is estimated at $ 5.3 trillion a year, according to the 2017 estimates.
According to the US Energy Agency, by 2025, %90 of the entire Gulf and Middle East output will go from energy to the South China Sea.
Since the 1970s, China has imposed its dominance over the region after all its neighbors have been forced to control any of the islands or points in the South China Sea, and it is the only force, and of course will be facing the United States in this case.
China currently controls %90 of the Southern sea of China islands, and all these countries are trying their legal and long-standing potential to prove their rights to those islands and sites.
China, on the other hands continues with it’s cold politics, like they’re not on a hurry to resolve anything, which in fact acording to their prospective there is nothing to talk about.
China confirms its right to own the entire South China Sea via the Nine-line map
China through its map acts contrary to what is customary in the demarcation of maritime boundaries according to international laws and customs, where the countries involved in the demarcation of the maritime border by providing a precise set of coordinates to prove its right to draw its maritime boundaries within the international waters, and at the same time they aren’t in a hurry, while the United States is pressing to accelerate the legalization, but the United States doesn’t have the right to intervene in the region that has no borders with it.
Therefore the United State is not part in this conflict, unlike the riparian states on the Southern sea of China, which cannot negotiate with China, the fact that the negotiations is unequal because of the strength of China’s huge compared to those countries, and therefore China exploit that issue and states that it alone has the right to understanding with its neighbors without interference from one.
Vietnam had resorted to international arbitration in 2016 and had been judged in favor of delimiting its borders in the waters and islands it was supposed to belong to – the Spratly Islands.
However, China had no interest in the results of the international arbitration which considers it originally illegitimate and politicized.
China currently controls the whole area and the entire Southern sea of China, while the United States doesn’t accept this situation.
It has the largest military fleet in the region and has long been the US 7th Fleet and parts of that region for the US Fifth Fleet.
The United States senses the danger of China and the loss of US control of the region and its transformation into a region of China, a threat to US interests.
The Americans and their allies insist on crossing as usual in that region, causing friction between Americans and Chinese.
The Pentagon had published that between 2016 and 2018 got about 18 serious confrontation between the two sides was the most important incident on September 18, 2018, where a Chinese warship faced a US warship to prevent it from crossing, and approached the ships From a distance of up to 33 meters.
In 2001, a US spy and reconnaissance plane encountered a Chinese fighter over the waters of the Southern sea of China, the Chinese fighter plane had shot down and the Chinese pilot were killed, causing great tension in US-China relations at the time.
Former US commander Indo-Pacific Command and current US ambassador to South Korea, Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr, say in his operational briefing to the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in 2017 several months ago From the end of his term as head of the region, that China is now the dominant area of the Southern sea of China in all scenarios except for the scenario of war, but the scenario of war isn’t on the table for the United States.
But even in the war scenario, the Americans feel they cannot stand up and win the war.
According to pentagon estimates, in return for some 317 naval pieces and a Chinese submarine, the United States has only 283 pieces.
In other words, the US estimate of war in the region between them and China would be in favor of China.
According to the Pentagon’s 2017 estimate, by 2025, China will outperform the United States by up to 30 percent in terms of the number of naval pieces, and China, which currently has only two aircraft carriers, will have by 2025 double the number of four aircraft carriers, so the situation is worrying the US officials, intelligence and military officers.
In July of 2018, the US Naval Journal published a fictional article by a US intelligence officer operating in the Pacific region, and was presented by American journalist Tom Ricks, at The National Interest, “The article was titled How the United States Lost the Pacific War in 2025 (How the US Lost the Pacific War of 2025).
The article was fictional, in which the author of the article suggested that he was writing the article in 2025, and that as an intelligence and communications officer who was sending telegrams and reports to his head, he concluded that the United States committed the fatal error because it did not strike the Chinese naval force in a timely manner, on China’s capabilities when the United States had the greatest powers, and how the United States had missed the chance to win by leaving China to obtain power and capability.
“We lost the war because we didn’t move against China in right time, with the effective way).
In the United States, there has been a growing sense of worrying of the growing Chinese power since President Barack Obama’s administration in 2010.
That’s why the United States and a number of its allies have launched naval operations called Operation Protecting Freedom of Shipping as a move to challenge China.
China, however, is still tightening its grip on the region despite US moves.
After taking control of most of the islands in the Southern sea of China, China is building a number of islands and building military airports overlooking the region and developing more ports on the banks of the Southern sea of China to receive its fleet of the Navy, and thus works intensely to strengthen its presence day after day.
The danger is that the threat of military confrontation between China and the United States is not limited to the Southern sea of China area, but extends to the Eastern sea of China region, where there is also disputes over number of islands between China and Japan.
In that region in the face of China as the region where its military bases are located in Japan.