South China/West Philippine Sea

[oscartamaguchiblackface]

During Cory’s term, my older brother was a young Army surgeon assigned to the Mindanao frontline. He tended the wounded soldiers at a station hospital. He was almost in tears with anger and frustration when he tells me stories on how desperate the situations of the soldiers were. They were always low on supplies. He sometimes had to operate without anesthesia; The soldier would just say, sige lang sir... tuloy mo lang... and just try to bear the pain. The soldiers have no uniforms, sometimes they buy fatigues from US army surplus so they can have one. Their combat boots wear out in just three months, and no replacement comes. They have to buy rubber shoes out of their pocket or they just wear flip flops to the battle zone. They were always low on ammo. For their own safety, some of them have to buy their own bullets.

Operate without anesthesia??OMG! I thought that went out a long time ago during the American Civil War where doctors amputated limbs of soldiers without using anesthesia.

 

From what you wrote it seems the situation back then for Filipino soldiers was indeed at its lowest. Going into battle with flip-flops because sub-standard combat boots that were provided to them wore out after only three months? Hmm...maybe the government should investigate this anomaly. Who was the supplier of combat boots during that period? Who chose the supplier? Who approved the contract?

[Bugatti Veyron]

Operate without anesthesia??OMG! I thought that went out a long time ago during the American Civil War where doctors amputated limbs of soldiers without using anesthesia.

 

From what you wrote it seems the situation back then for Filipino soldiers was indeed at its lowest. Going into battle with flip-flops because sub-standard combat boots that were provided to them wore out after only three months? Hmm...maybe the government should investigate this anomaly. Who was the supplier of combat boots during that period? Who chose the supplier? Who approved the contract?

Baka naman may statute of limitations yan.....

[Bugatti Veyron]

The AFP doesn't want a repeat of the coup of 89 when they shot at each other.

Here's a link describing that particular coup.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Philippine_coup_attempt

[sonnyt111]

Here's a link describing that particular coup.

 

http://en.wikipedia....ne_coup_attempt

We had no electricity for an entire week during this coup. At night, I could hear automatic fire in the distance on a regular basis. I felt like a prisoner in my house since the rest of the Makati area, especially the Ayala Center were occupied by opposing military forces.

 

That was probably one of the most serious coup attempts ever. Thankfully, it hasn't been repeated, at least on that scale. The Oakwood mutiny was nothing compared to that December, 1989 coup.

 

 

 

 

[dos8dos]

Isn't it that it was during GMA's term when the Hamilton class cutter was requisitioned? And it was during her term when the search for Lead-in Fighter-Trainer was on-going?

In my opinion, BS Aquino is only enjoying the results of modernization that was initiated during the time of previous administrations of FVR, Erap, and GMA.

 

What I can say for sure is this: Kinapon ang AFP during Cory's time. It was during that time when our soldiers were sent to combat wearing t-shirts and flip-flops, and even situations when they had to buy their own bullets. The military's morale was at the lowest during her term. Remember the time when she even asked the US President to order the US Air Force to shoot down our own planes?

 

glory denied those requests, we were pawned to china remember with joint seismic agreement, together with other chinese funded govt project like the NBN-ZTE and north rail

 

it was during corys term that the S211 trainer jets were requested and acquired (brand new) for the phil air force

[heatseeker0714]

Here's a link describing that particular coup.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Philippine_coup_attempt

 

naaalala nyo pa ba or alam nyo ba yung Brother to Brother incident noon???

 

A Philippine Army Soldier was manning the guardhouse at Gate 1 of Aguinaldo along Santolan Street in front of that delicious hole in the wall Pares carinderia...

 

Here comes a rebel tank complete with rebel markings spraying his post with machine gun fire...

 

Soldier takes cover, gets his bazooka and blows the tank...

 

They check the remains of the tank and finds the body of his brother inside who was one of the crew of the tank...

 

Soldier breaks down and cries on the street...

 

 

That was Coup 89...

[camiar]

glory denied those requests, we were pawned to china remember with joint seismic agreement, together with other chinese funded govt project like the NBN-ZTE and north rail

 

it was during corys term that the S211 trainer jets were requested and acquired (brand new) for the phil air force

I doubt if GMA denied the request because there was an ongoing search for a suitable offshore patrol vessel was at that time, and the government was evaluating other alternatives. It was during GMA's term when they came up with the idea of using Malampaya Funds to acquire OPVs to protect our offshore platform and the other oil exploration sites within our EEZ. What was your basis that GMA denied it?

 

The S211 is the lemon of all lemons as far as Trainer/Attack planes are concerned. Though brand new, its optical targeting system sucked from day one. The air force technicians had to use the famous Filipino "diskarte" to use the targeting system recycled from retired F-5's to make some use out of the S-211s other than train pilots how to take off and land a jet. Of the 25 we bought, only 5 are now left flying in so short period of time. S-211s is the Philippine Air Force's version of the "Widow Maker". Anyway, I doubt if Cory has any idea what her government bought for the Air Force at that time. I'd hazard a guess that a few Air Force generals retired rich when the S211s were procured.

[camiar]

I didn't realize that I can't create new threads until Larry mentioned it...

 

Creating new, threads about what's going on around us has made this forum interesting. Is manilatonight becoming a bigot?

 

Anyway, as a sign of protest, why don't we all stop posting in this forum until ManilaTonight gives us back the right to create new threads.

 

Moderators: PM me once you guys changed your stupid rule.

 

Goodbye for now. I won't be posting no more till you give back our rights.

[sonnyt111]

I'd hazard a guess that a few Air Force generals retired rich when the S211s were procured.

 

I have no doubt in my mind regarding this. Well the untimely deaths of pilots who flew these aircraft are on the dirty hands of these few Air Force generals.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bugatti Veyron]

I have no doubt in my mind regarding this. Well the untimely deaths of pilots who flew these aircraft are on the dirty hands of these few Air Force generals.

Those generals and other high military officers who benefitted from the sale of Kalashnikovs to the NPA are worse. But then again, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the officers who benefitted from the purchase of these S211 "widow makers" are the same officers who benefitted from the sale of high powered firearms to the APF's sworn enemy.

[Bugatti Veyron]

http://news.yahoo.com/hoping-project-power-china-finds-itself-alone-060524988.html

 

 

Hoping to project power, China finds itself alone

http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/04/21/image001-png_162613.png By JACK CHANG 2 hours agoBEIJING (AP) — Nearly three decades after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping famously instructed his diplomats to "be good at maintaining a low profile and never claim leadership," a new generation of rulers has made it clear that they're ready to shed the humility and show off their country's rising military and political power.

 

From Southeast Asian waters that may hold billions of barrels of oil to uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, China has stepped into territorial disputes with neighbors including Japan, South Korea and the Philippines — and in some cases, some would say, provoked them. At the same time, Beijing has pledged to build what it says will be a new security framework for Asia, replacing U.S.-dominated alliances that have defined the post-World War II period.

 

"We should work for a new architecture of Asia-Pacific security cooperation that is open, transparent and equality-based," Chinese President Xi Jinping told dignitaries from India and Myanmar last month. "The notion of dominating international affairs belongs to a different age and such an attempt is doomed to failure."

 

Yet despite Xi's depiction of China as a "peaceful, amiable and civilized lion," the country's moves have so far set off alarms across the region and pushed other Asian countries to seek backup from Washington. Promises to build a self-governing Asian community of nations have amounted to little more than words, while the reality has been what many see as Chinese bullying.

 

Xi, who has shown similar boldness at home since rising to power last year, is at the heart of the new strategy. For the first time in decades, Chinese officials are emphasizing an "active" foreign policy that sets the regional agenda while touting China's maritime strength.

 

"This is a very strong theme with him," said Christopher Johnson, a former China analyst with the CIA who's now chairman of China studies at the U.S. think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It's bound up in his view of himself as not only the savior of the party but kind of an instrument of history, with the goal being this great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

 

That means showing "strong willingness to counter U.S. influence in the region," said Alice Ekman, head of China research at the French Institute of International Relations. Chinese officials have been especially critical of the Obama administration's touted "pivot to Asia," with diplomats openly mocking America's ability to police the region.

 

"We are seeing at several levels — economic, institutional, political, security — a reinforced competition between China and the U.S. in the region since Xi's arrival." Ekman said at a recent lecture in Beijing on China's foreign policy.

 

She said China's growing dominance of the global economy, and its neighbors' dependence on Chinese trade, is central to the strategy. "China's moves in the region are based on the following hypothesis: Time moves in favor of China as long as the economic attractiveness of China will reinforce the balance of power in favor of China," she said.

 

Xi's immediate goal is to give his country's forces tactical military superiority within what is known as the first island chain off the country's shores, from Japan down to Indonesia, Johnson said.

 

In May, Chinese officials sent an oil rig into parts of the South China Sea claimed by both China and Vietnam, setting off repeated confrontations between the two countries' ships and sparking anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam. In the nearby Spratly archipelago, the Chinese have been adding sand to reefs and rocks so they can build military installations despite claims to the outcroppings by both Vietnam and the Philippines.

 

Farther north, China provoked rebuke from Japan, South Korea and the U.S. in November after declaring an air defense identification zone, which requires foreign planes to identify themselves to Chinese forces across much of the East China Sea. China and Japan are disputing control of a scattering of rocky islands there, and Japan protested after Chinese fighter jets flew close to Japanese surveillance planes observing a joint China-Russia naval drill in May.

 

China is also locked in longstanding territorial disputes with India along its southern border and has committed itself to defending with military force if necessary what it calls its core interests — chief among them, reuniting with the self-governing island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims, and holding on to Tibet.

 

China has appeared to be more active in defending territorial claims than it has been in pursuing a new alliance of Asian countries. At a China-hosted summit in May of some four dozen countries and international groups, Xi touted what he said would be a new Asian security network that would exclude the U.S., but he left the meeting with few solid steps to actually building such a framework.

 

Australian Cabinet minister Malcolm Turnbull said China has found itself largely alone, at least diplomatically, as it shows its teeth to the region.

 

"It has really no allies in the region, apart from North Korea," Turnbull was quoted as saying at a recent security and economic leadership conference. "And the consequence has been how China's neighbors are drawing closer to the United States than ever before."

 

With tensions high over China, U.S. President Barack Obama paid high-profile visits to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines in April, where he reassured governments that the U.S. would honor agreements to defend them.

 

Japanese leaders took matters into their own hands last week when they reinterpreted their pacifist constitution to let them expand the use of the country's military to defend its allies. The move strengthens Japan's alliance with the U.S. but also opens the door to new alliances with like-minded Asian countries.

 

"In the South China Sea, I think Chinese leaders have one purpose: They want to do as much damage as possible to U.S. credibility," said Huang Jing, a China expert at Singapore National University's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. "China understands that if China appears soft, there'll be no end of it, so China will appear tough and will not make compromises ... and (China believes) the U.S. will not come to help when push comes to shove."

 

In capitals across Asia, he said, China is forcing governments to make a difficult choice: Will they bet on a future dominated by a newly confident China or one based on longtime U.S. assurances?

 

 

 

[sonnyt111]

An interesting analysis about how China views American military might and how it believes it can take on the United States in this part of the world.

 

http://theweek.com/article/index/264032/china-thinks-it-can-defeat-america-in-battle

 

China thinks it can defeat America in battle

 

But it overlooks one decisive factor By David Axe, War is Boring | July 7, 2014The bad news first. The People's Republic of China now believes it can successfully prevent the United States from intervening in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or some other military assault by Beijing.

 

Now the good news. China is wrong — and for one major reason. It apparently disregards the decisive power of America's nuclear-powered submarines.

 

Moreover, for economic and demographic reasons Beijing has a narrow historical window in which to use its military to alter the world's power structure. If China doesn't make a major military move in the next couple decades, it probably never will.

 

The U.S. Navy's submarines — the unsung main defenders of the current world order — must hold the line against China for another 20 years. After that, America can declare a sort of quiet victory in the increasingly chilly Cold War with China.

 

How China wins

 

The bad news came from Lee Fuell, from the U.S. Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center, during Fuell's testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 30.

 

For years, Chinese military planning assumed that any attack by the People's Liberation Army on Taiwan or a disputed island would have to begin with a Pearl Harbor-style preemptive missile strike by China against U.S. forces in Japan and Guam. The PLA was so afraid of overwhelming American intervention that it genuinely believed it could not win unless the Americans were removed from the battlefield before the main campaign even began.

 

A preemptive strike was, needless to say, a highly risky proposition. If it worked, the PLA just might secure enough space and time to defeat defending troops, seize territory, and position itself for a favorable post-war settlement.

 

But if China failed to disable American forces with a surprise attack, Beijing could find itself fighting a full-scale war on at least two fronts: against the country it was invading plus the full might of U.S. Pacific Command, fully mobilized and probably strongly backed by the rest of the world.

 

That was then. But after two decades of sustained military modernization, the Chinese military has fundamentally changed its strategy in just the last year or so. According to Fuell, recent writings by PLA officers indicate "a growing confidence within the PLA that they can more-readily withstand U.S. involvement."

 

The preemptive strike is off the table — and with it, the risk of a full-scale American counterattack. Instead, Beijing believes it can attack Taiwan or another neighbor while also bloodlessly deterring U.S. intervention. It would do so by deploying such overwhelmingly strong military forces — ballistic missiles, aircraft carriers, jet fighters, and the like — that Washington dare not get involved.

 

The knock-on effects of deterring America could be world-changing. "Backing away from our commitments to protect Taiwan, Japan, or the Philippines would be tantamount to ceding East Asia to China's domination," Roger Cliff, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, said at the same U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing on Jan. 30.

 

Worse, the world's liberal economic order — and indeed, the whole notion of democracy — could suffer irreparable harm. "The United States has both a moral and a material interest in a world in which democratic nations can survive and thrive," Cliff asserted.

 

Fortunately for that liberal order, America possesses by far the world's most powerful submarine force — one poised to quickly sink any Chinese invasion fleet. In announcing its readiness to hold off the U.S. military, the PLA seems to have ignored Washington's huge undersea advantage.

 

The Silent Service

 

It's not surprising that Beijing would overlook America's subs. Most Americans overlook their own undersea fleet — and that's not entirely their own fault. The U.S. sub force takes pains to avoid media coverage in order to maximize its secrecy and stealth. "The submarine cruises the world's oceans unseen," the Navy stated on its Website.

 

Unseen and unheard. That why the sub force calls itself the "Silent Service."

 

The Navy has 74 submarines, 60 of which are attack or missile submarines optimized for finding and sinking other ships or blasting land targets. The balance is ballistic-missile boats that carry nuclear missiles and would not routinely participate in military campaigns short of an atomic World War III.

 

Thirty-three of the attack and missile boats belong to the Pacific Fleet, with major bases in Washington State, California, Hawaii, and Guam. Deploying for six months or so roughly every year and a half, America's Pacific subs frequently stop over in Japan and South Korea and occasionally even venture under the Arctic ice.

 

According to Adm. Cecil Haney, the former commander of Pacific Fleet subs, on any given day 17 boats are underway and eight are "forward-deployed," meaning they are on station in a potential combat zone. To the Pacific Fleet, that pretty much means waters near China.

 

America has several submarine types. The numerous Los Angeles-class attack boats are Cold War stalwarts that are steadily being replaced by newer Virginia-class boats with improved stealth and sensors. The secretive Seawolfs, numbering just three — all of them in the Pacific — are big, fast, and more heavily armed than other subs. The Ohio-class missile submarines are former ballistic missile boats each packing 154 cruise missile.

 

U.S. subs are, on average, bigger, faster, quieter, and more powerful than the rest of the world's subs. And there are more of them. The U.K. is building just seven new Astute attack boats. Russia aims to maintain around 12 modern attack subs. China is struggling to deploy a handful of rudimentary nuclear boats.

 

Able to lurk silently under the waves and strike suddenly with torpedoes and missiles, submarines have tactical and strategic effect greatly disproportionate to their relatively small numbers. During the 1982 Falklands War, the British sub Conqueror torpedoed and sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, killing 323 men. The sinking kept the rest of the Argentine fleet bottled up for the duration of the conflict.

 

America's eight-at-a-time submarine picket in or near Chinese waters could be equally destructive to Chinese military plans, especially considering the PLA's limited anti-submarine skills. "Although China might control the surface of the sea around Taiwan, its ability to find and sink U.S. submarines will be extremely limited for the foreseeable future," Cliff testified. "Those submarines would likely be able to intercept and sink Chinese amphibious transports as they transited toward Taiwan."

 

So it almost doesn't matter that a modernized PLA thinks it possesses the means to fight America above the waves, on land, and in the air. If it can't safely sail an invasion fleet as part of its territorial ambitions, it can't achieve its strategic goals — capturing Taiwan and or some island also claimed by a neighboring country — through overtly military means.

 

That reality should inform Washington's own strategy. As the United States has already largely achieved the world order it struggled for over the last century, it need only preserve and defend this order. In other words, America has the strategic high ground against China, as the latter must attack and alter the world in order to get what it wants.

 

In practical military terms, that means the Pentagon can more or less ignore most of China's military capabilities, including those that appear to threaten traditional U.S. advantages in nukes, air warfare, mechanized ground operations, and surface naval maneuvers.

 

"We won't invade China, so ground forces don't play," pointed out Wayne Hughes, a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. "We won't conduct a first nuclear strike. We should not adopt an air-sea strike plan against the mainland, because that is a sure way to start World War IV."

 

Rather, America must deny the Chinese free access to their near waters. "We need only enough access to threaten a war at sea," Hughes said. In his view, a fleet optimized for countering China would have large numbers of small surface ships for enforcing a trade blockade. But the main combatants would be submarines, "to threaten destruction of all Chinese warships and commercial vessels in the China Seas."

 

Cliff estimated that in wartime, each American submarine would be able to get off "a few torpedo shots" before needing to "withdraw for self-preservation." But assuming eight subs each fire three torpedoes, and just half those torpedoes hit, the American attack boats could destroy all of China's major amphibious ships — and with them, Beijing's capacity for invading Taiwan or seizing a disputed island.

 

Waiting out the Chinese decline

 

If American subs can hold the line for another 20 years, China might age right out of its current, aggressive posture without ever having attacked anyone. That's because economic and demographic trends in China point towards a rapidly aging population, flattening economic growth, and fewer resources available for military modernization.

 

To be fair, almost all developed countries are also experiencing this aging, slowing and increasing peacefulness. But China's trends are pronounced owing to a particularly steep drop in the birth rate traceable back to the Chinese Communist Party's one-child policy.

 

Another factor is the unusual speed with which the Chinese economy has expanded to its true potential, thanks to the focused investment made possible by an authoritarian government… and also thanks to that government's utter disregard for the natural environment and for the rights of everyday Chinese people.

 

"The economic model that propelled China through three decades of meteoric growth appears unsustainable," Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College analyst, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

 

What Erickson described as China's "pent-up national potential" could begin expiring as early as 2030, by which point "China will have world's highest proportion of people over 65," he predicted. "An aging society with rising expectations, burdened with rates of chronic diseases exacerbated by sedentary lifestyles, will probably divert spending from both military development and the economic growth that sustains it."

 

Wisely, American political and military leaders have made the investments necessary to sustain U.S. undersea power for at least that long. After a worrying dip in submarine production, starting in 2012 the Pentagon asked for — and Congress funded — the acquisition of two Virginia-class submarines per year for around $2.5 billion apiece, a purchase rate adequate to maintain the world's biggest nuclear submarine fleet indefinitely.

 

Given China's place in the world, its underlying national trends and America's pointed advantage in just that aspect of military power that's especially damaging to Chinese plans, it seems optimistic for PLA officers to assume they can launch an attack on China's neighbors without first knocking out U.S. forces.

 

Not that a preemptive strike would make any difference, as the only American forces that truly matter for containing China are the very ones that China cannot reach.

 

For they are deep underwater.

 

 

 

[sonnyt111]

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-five-best-weapons-war-the-soviet-union-10681

 

If Vietnam and China Went to War: Five Weapons Beijing Should Fear

 

They went to war in 1979 and it did not turn out well for China. Today, Vietnam has the military muscle to present lots of problems.

 

Robert Farley July 12, 2014

 

 

 

In 1975, the armed forces of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam defeated the Republic of Vietnam, capturing Saigon and putting to end nearly thirty years of civil war. The victory came three years after the United States, unwilling to pay the price of continued engagement, left the war. In 1979, the People’s Republic of China invaded Vietnam in an effort to punish Hanoi for its actions in Cambodia, and for its association with the Soviet Union. The war lasted a month, with Chinese forces leaving after heavy losses and without achieving any strategic objectives.

 

In short, the Vietnam People’s Army has a history of success. Today, Sino-Vietnamese relations are again hitting a low point. The deployment of a Chinese oil rig in waters claimed by Vietnam has only exacerbated tensions over control of islands in the South China Sea. Various Vietnamese politicians, including the late Vo Nguyen Giap, have warned about the threat of Chinese encroachment.

 

If war broke out, what weapons could Vietnam use? It turns out that China and Vietnam shop in the same place; most of the weapons that Vietnam would use against China are also in the hands of the People’s Liberation Army. However, the implications of offensive and defensive employment vary greatly. Here are five systems that Vietnam might use to good effect against the Chinese military.

 

Su-27

 

Airpower played a curiously small role in the 1979 war. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) did not, because of problems with doctrine and technology, have the capacity to extend itself over the battlefront. The much smaller Vietnam People’s Air Force (VPAF) remained quiet, preferring to play the defensive role that it had perfected against the United States a decade earlier, but didn’t need in this conflict.

 

That won’t be the case the next time around. Both the VPAF and the PLAAF have upgraded with formidable Russian, and in the latter case domestic, aircraft. Most notable among these are members of the Su-27 Flanker family. Vietnam operates around 40 Flankers of various types, with another 20 on order from Russia. In addition to defense air-to-air missions, these aircraft can strike Chinese land and sea targets with long-range, precision cruise missiles. The Flankers are heavy, fast, and deadly, and would see action on both sides.

 

In conjunction with Vietnam’s integrated air defense network, the Flankers (as well as a few older fighters, such as MiG-21s), can threaten not only to deny Vietnamese airspace to China, but also to punch back. We don’t yet have a sense of how Vietnamese pilot training compares with Chinese, although the PLAAF obviously has greater resources, and has devoted attention in recent years to realistic training. Nevertheless, the VPAF may be able to use its sophisticated Flankers to good defensive advantage against overstretched Chinese forces.

 

Kilo Class Submarine

 

Analysts generally agree that the PLAN has yet to work out the most important problems with anti-submarine warfare. While the PLAN will undoubtedly have a huge advantage in submarines in the opening days of any conflict, its undersea fleet is optimized for attacks against surface ships, not fighting enemy subs.

 

The quiet, modern Kilo class subs that Vietnam has recently begun acquiring from Russia will present a major problem for the PLAN. Although the Chinese also operate Kilos (as well as a variety of other subs), these would not necessarily neutralize the Vietnamese boats before they could exact a toll. The Vietnamese Kilos carry both torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles that could pose a big threat to Chinese warships and to Chinese offshore installations.

 

Vietnam currently operates two Kilos, with four more on order. Although China may try to pressure Russia to slow the transfer of subs and munitions to Vietnam, Moscow is unlikely to comply. Vietnam will field a steadily stronger submarine force over the next few years, just as big new Chinese warships come to serve as juicy targets.

 

P-800 Onyx Cruise Missile

 

Over the past decades, China has developed a formidable array of cruise missiles as part of its A2/AD “system of systems.” With China now interested in projecting power, it has to manage the budding A2/AD systems of its neighbors. Like China, Vietnam has long pursued a variety of launch systems for cruise missiles. Today, Vietnam can launch cruise missiles from aircraft, surface ships, submarines, and shore based platforms. In combination, these missiles could attack Chinese ships from multiple, unexpected vectors in order to overwhelm the PLAN’s shipboard air defense systems.

 

The shore based platforms may be the most survivable in context of a major Chinese assault. Vietnam already operates the P-800 Onyx surface-to-surface cruise missile, intended for coastal defense. A Mach 2.5 missile with a 180 mile range and a 250kg warhead, the Onyx can give any Chinese warship a very bad day. Located at strategic points and defended by the VPA’s air defense network, these missiles (as well as various older shore-launched cruise missiles) could severely limit the PLAN’s radius of action.

 

S-300 SAM

 

The PLAAF hasn’t flown against an integrated, sophisticated air defense system since… well, ever. Using the PLAAF against Vietnam will require the Chinese to suppress or avoid Vietnamese air defenses. Suppression of Enemy Air Defense operations are among the most organizationally and individually demanding missions than an air force can undertake. The United States has developed expertise in these missions through hard experience won in Vietnam, Kosovo, and Iraq, and through ultra-realistic exercises over the Nevada desert. We don’t yet know if the PLAAF has developed the kind of expertise needed to defeat the Vietnamese air defense network. If it hasn’t, Vietnamese surface-to-air missiles could exact a terrible toll on Chinese pilots and aircraft.

 

The most advanced system in the VPAF’s air defense network is the S-300. It can track and engage dozens of targets at ranges of up to seventy-five miles. Additional point-defense systems can protect the S-300s themselves from attack. Used in conjunction with the fighters of the VPAF, the SAM network would make it very difficult to carry out a concerted air campaign against Vietnam at acceptable cost.

 

Space

 

In 1979, China tried to punish Hanoi by launching a massive infantry and armor invasion of Vietnam’s northern provinces. The Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) determined that the central Chinese objective was to engage and destroy the best units of the army. Consequently, the VPA avoided committing its most effective units until the PLA could be channeled into appropriate ambush zones. At that point, both sides suffered heavy losses, but the Chinese eventually withdrew.

 

Both the PLA and the VPA are smaller now than in 1979, but more professional, more technologically advanced, and better organized. The VPA in particular has increased the educational attainment of its officer corps, exposed its units to international training and experience, and provided them with significant equipment upgrades.

 

This doesn’t make the VPA the equal of the PLA, but then it doesn’t have to be. As in 1979, the VPA has the advantage of space. The tenacity of Vietnamese infantry, often fighting with guerilla tactics in inhospitable terrain, will probably deter the PLA from a major land incursion into Vietnam’s north. In the unlikely event that China decides to punish Vietnam with another ground invasion, it can expect serious losses from mechanized counterattacks, especially given the likely inability of the PLAAF to win air supremacy over the battlefield. The PLA is big, but the VPA has repeatedly demonstrated a capability for finding and maximizing its territorial assets.

 

Conclusion

 

Vietnam does not want a full-scale war with China. The best case scenario for such a conflict is a replay of 1979, which proved humiliating for China but very costly for Vietnam. In particular, Vietnam doesn’t want to go toe-to-toe with China in a capital and technology intensive war that might attrite away the expensive equipment that the VPA has acquired. Nevertheless, China must appreciate that Vietnam has bite. The Vietnamese military, in its current configuration, is designed to deter Chinese adventurism. We can expect that Vietnam will enhance these capabilities as the years go on, and as provocations in the South China Sea continue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bugatti Veyron]

http://peakoil.com/publicpolicy/why-china-wants-control-of-the-south-china-sea

[maxiev]

China keeps changing excuses for sea claim

 

GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc (The Philippine Star) | Updated August 4, 2014 - 12:00am

 

Ancient Malays had crossed the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific millenniums before China started mapping its surrounding waters. With that fact, Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio prefaced a lecture last June at De La Salle University on China’s false historical claims over the South China Sea. “Historical Facts, Lies, and Rights” reviews Filipinos on their ancestors’ feats, and opens Chinese eyes to the bankruptcy of their communist leaders’ thinking. Following is a three-part serialization:

 

* * *

 

1. China has always asserted that its nine-dashed-line claim is based on international law. Thus, in the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct, China agreed that the maritime disputes in the South China Sea shall be resolved “in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.” There is no mention whatsoever in the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct that “historical facts”shall also be a basis in resolving the maritime disputes.

 

2. After the Philippines filed in January 2013 its arbitration case against China before an international tribunal, invoking UNCLOS to protect the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines, China stressed “historical facts” as another basis for its maritime claims in the South China Sea. China’s mantra now states that China’s nine-dashed line claim is based, in the words of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on “historical facts and international law.”

 

3. General Fang Fenghui, Chief of Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, recently declared during his visit to the United States, “Territory passed down by previous Chinese generations to the present one will not be forgotten or sacrificed.” Chinese diplomats now declare that they will not give one inch of territory that their ancestors bequeathed to them. Two weeks ago, during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, China’s spokesperson, former deputy Foreign Minister Fu Ying, declared that the islands in the South China Sea were “first discovered by China hundreds of years before they were occupied by Japan during World War II.” Fu Ying stressed that “China has a very clear claim to these islands,” without, however, giving any specifics.

 

4. Chinese leaders and Chinese citizens who entered school after 1947, the year the nine-dashed line map was drawn, have been taught that China has historical rights to the South China Sea. This is of course false and merely constitutes state propaganda, but unfortunately the Chinese people now believe in this propaganda as “historical facts.”

 

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5. There are, of course, Chinese scholars who realize that China’s nine-dashed line claim cannot stand impartial scrutiny based on actual historical facts. Professor Jin Canrong of Renmin University in Beijing, who attended the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, said that China should be given more time to clarify its nine-dashed line claim because if it clarifies its claim now, it will face domestic political pressure. Prof. Jin said, “Give China some time, it will change its stance in the future.”

 

6. That change, however, will not happen without the misimpression by the Chinese people on the so-called “historical facts” being first corrected. If the actual, unvarnished historical facts are presented to the Chinese people, then change will follow naturally. That is why it is important to discuss the actual historical facts in the West Philippine Sea, with a caveat.

 

7. Historical facts, even if true, relating to discovery and exploration in the Age of Discovery (early 15th century until the 17th century) or even earlier, have no bearing whatsoever in the resolution of maritime disputes under UNCLOS. Neither Spain nor Portugal can ever revive their 15th century claims to ownership of all the oceans and seas of our planet, despite the 1481 Papal Bull confirming the division of the then undiscovered world between Spain and Portugal. The sea voyages of the Chinese Imperial Admiral Zheng He, from 1405-1433, can never be the basis of any claim to the South China Sea. Neither can historical names serve as basis for claiming the oceans and seas.

 

8. The South China Sea was not even named by the Chinese but by European navigators and cartographers. The Song and Ming Dynasties called the South China Sea the “Giao Chi Sea,” and the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China as well as the People’s Republic of China call it the “South Sea” without the word “China.” India cannot claim the Indian Ocean, and Mexico cannot claim the Gulf of Mexico, in the same way that the Philippines cannot claim the Philippine Sea, just because historically these bodies of water have been named after these countries.

 

9. Neither can ancient conquests be invoked under international law to claim territories. Greece cannot claim Egypt, Iran, Turkey and the land stretching up to Pakistan just because Alexander the Great conquered that part of the world from 334-323 BC. Neither can Mongolia claim China just because Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan conquered China, with Kublai Khan founding the Yuan Dynasty that ruled China from 1271 to 1368 AD. Neither can Italy claim the land conquered and ruled by the Roman Empire from 27 BC to 476 AD, stretching from Europe to the Middle East.

 

10. Under international law, as held in the famous 1928 Island of Palmas case between the United States as the colonial power in the Philippines and the Netherlands as the colonial power in Indonesia (Permanent Court of Arbitration 1928), a state cannot maintain title to territory based on discovery alone where subsequent to such discovery another state has shown “continuous and peaceful display of territorial sovereignty” over the same territory. While mere discovery may have been sufficient to acquire valid title to territory in the 16th century, the continued validity of such title over the centuries requires compliance with new conditions required by evolving international law for the acquisition of such title. Besides, since the time of decolonization after World War II, the consent of the people in the disputed territory is now paramount to any territorial claim as embodied in the right to self-determination of nations that were conquered and colonized by other states.