The Briefing Room
General Category => World News => Topic started by: IsailedawayfromFR on June 09, 2017, 09:47:00 pm
-
China is no long making more artificial islands to bolster its territorial claims in the South China Sea—it has moved on to developing them, adding aircraft hangars, communications equipment, and weapons positions. That's one conclusion of the Pentagon's annual report on the Chinese military, and it's a finding that contradicts Chinese leader Xi Jinping's pledge to not militarize the contested region, which is also claimed by many of China's neighbors.
In 2009, Beijing set off alarm bells by circulating a map in which it appeared to claim up to 90 percent of the South China Sea. The territorial claim intruded on competing claims by neighbors including Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei, and Malaysia. Starting in 2014, China began using dredging equipment to expand existing reefs and shoals in the region into full-fledged "islands," adding 2,300 acres of new "land" to the Spratly Islands.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a26824/china-arming-fake-islands/?src=nl&mag=pop&list=nl_pnl_news&date=060917
Notice China began building these islands during the limp Obama Era.
-
I remember reading about the Chinese manufacturing new islands in the limp Clinton era. Limp Obama probably just gave the go-ahead to start militarizing them.
-
Creating facts on the ground that eventually can't be denied.
-
Who ever seriously believed that they would not do this?
Probably the same folks who think that because of "an agreement" Iran will stop its program to build nuclear weapons… ;)