Are China And U.S. Edging Toward An Inevitable War?

Hegemony: With China making aggressive moves against its neighbors and the U.S. distracted by President Obama's diplomatic failures, are the U.S. and China edging inevitably towards conflict? It sure looks that way.

A Filipino soldier patrols the shore of Pag-asa Island, part 
of the Spratly Islands archipelago, in the South China 
Sea on May 11, 2015. AP

China released a white paper on Tuesday warning that further meddling in what it sees as its areas of interest will lead to armed conflict. It makes for grim reading.

In an editorial in the Communist Party-owned Global Times, China warned: "If the United States' bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a U.S.-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea."

LINK to related story: U.S. Rebukes China Over 
Maritime Dispute

In fact, China is making major claims on that body of water and the East China Sea — claims that the U.S. State Department asserts, and we concur, are spurious and trample all notions of international law.

In the South China Sea, China already claims the Paracel and Spratly Islands — and, indeed, has told its neighbors that the entire sea surrounding Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines is, in effect, a Chinese lake. Whatever any Southeast Asian nation wants to do in its sea — shipping, military maneuvers, mining, fishing — will require China's permission.

Link to a related story: Beijing Accuses U.S. of Stoking 
South China Sea Tensions

This is a direct challenge to the U.S., which has close ties with many nations in the area. Yet so far the U.S. has been slow to respond.

Beijing is pushing the issue. To bolster its absurd and aggressive territorial claims, China has refined a technique whereby it builds artificial islands on reefs, often including military facilities.

CNN recently reported one incident in which a U.S. Navy P-8 on routine patrol over one of the artificial islands was warned that it was violating China's sovereignty. What made the report especially noteworthy was that the warning came from China's military — not its civilian authorities as usual.

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As Heritage Foundation analyst Dean Cheng recently noted, "Beijing has deployed military forces to these new, artificial islands and has therefore already militarized these disputes."

This might not be so serious if not for China's threatening military moves. In the East China Sea, "China is now building an air and naval base in the Nanji Islands, which is the closest part of China to the Senkaku Islands (which are claimed by Japan)," wrote David Archibald, a visiting fellow at the Institute of World Politics, in the American Thinker.

Read the rest of this IBD editorial HERE.

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