Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it…
There was “no such thing” as man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea, China’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday, and reiterated that any building work was mainly for civilian purposes.
Full article, HERE from Reuters.
Soooo… Missile batteries, artillery pieces, fighter jet operations are ‘civilian’… And they were built using PLA-N assets, guarded by Chinese destroyers, etc…
And pay no attention to the fact that China is only ONE of the claimants for these islands, which include Vietnam, Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia.
This is about oil and minerals that are in the area, all of which are ‘necessary’ for China’s production of ‘product’ for sale around the world, or so they say. Now when you add in the attempts to enforce a new ADIZ (temporarily in abeyance, apparently), plus harassment of US and other foreign Naval assets that have legally transited the area, well, in my mind, 2+2=4…
Just sayin…
Willie’s playing my song, so light posting and commenting for the next week.
I don’t recall a time in the last century when China’s word could be trusted, and this isn’t the Great White Fleet era. Our photographs of the islands under construction are clearly fake, right? Right?
“This is about oil and minerals that are in the area, all of which are ‘necessary’ for China’s production of ‘product’ for sale around the world…”
Sounds suspiciously like the Empire of Japan around 75 years ago…….
I thought that this was an attempt at an April Fool’s joke on the part of China…
but of course, it’s not.
I think we ought to thank the Chicoms for proclaiming that naval vessels, jet fighters and anti-aircraft guns are “civilian”. With all the statists trying to convince everyone that we peasants can’t be trusted to possess “military” weapons and that we need to use foreign ideas when determining what our Constitution says. 🙂
Perhaps we shouldn’t regard China as monolithic. The armed forces seem to do what they want with only a nod toward the civilian government, or is my perception wrong?
All- Thanks for the comments. WSF- THey are doing what the .gov tells them to.
Posted from my iPhone.
Hey Old NFO;
Yep other countries like Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan have claim to the Island and we have shed blood with the Filipino’s so there is that loyalty. Japan ain’t no slouch and Vietnam survived battling a major power, I wonder if they will pull it off again. It will be interesting times.
Well the PLA does belong to the civilian political party and not the government so technically they are not lying.