US-China war 'inevitable' unless Washington drops demands over South China Sea

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UK Telegraph:

In the new policy document published on Tuesday, China outlined its plans to shift from a defensive military posture to placing emphasis on offensive capabilities.

Claiming that it faces a "grave and complex array of security threats", including challenges to its sovereignty over the South China Sea, the policy document released by the State Council says the military will step up its "open seas protection".

 

The on-going reclamation by China at Subi reef seen from Pagasa island

China's forces will no longer be limited to defence of the nation's territory but will project its military power further beyond its borders at sea and more assertively in the air in order to safeguard its maritime possessions, the white paper states.

While the air force will shift focus from "territorial air defence" to both offence and defence, the Chinese army will increase its global mobility and its artillery will improve its "medium and long-range precision strikes", it said.

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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.

 

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."

 

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.

 

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/052615-754270-new-china-white-paper-warns-of-inevitable-conflict-with-us.htm

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Artillery weapons detected on artificial islands built by China, US claims, in what it calls a 'disturbing' development in South China Sea

 

US officials say artillery weapons have been detected on artificial islands allegedly being built by China, in what has been described as a "disturbing and escalatory" development in the South China Sea dispute.

The US, which is understood to have made the discovery several weeks ago, this week called for any land reclamation in the disputed region to be brought to an immediate end, as it urged for China and other countries near the sea to find a peaceful solution.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-claims-artillery-weapons-have-been-detected-on-artificial-islands-built-by-china-in-what-it-calls-a-disturbing-development-in-south-china-sea-10284280.html

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US preparing to face down China in the South China Sea - while locals expect 'bonanza of riches' from return of American sailors

 

American flags fly fore and aft on the US missile cruiser Shiloh as it docks at a pier across a narrow waterway from decrepit, decaying buildings of an abandoned US naval base at Subic Bay. The dock was once a bulwark of American power in the South China Sea after US forces seized the base from the Spanish in 1899.

 

At the end of a long walkway from the pier to shore, eager shopkeepers again sell souvenirs and taxi drivers lie in wait for sailors primed for a night of carousing in the bars of Olongapo, the base town in the Philippines. Now, nearly a quarter of a century after the US Navy had to give up its Subic Bay base and the Clark Air Base across the Zambales mountains to the east, Americans are once again ready to defend the Philippines, and the region.

 

The Philippines Senate, which had voted in 1991 against renewing the lease on US bases, has dropped its objection to the American return to waters threatened by China’s new insistence on its right to rule almost all the South China Sea – including the Spratly Islands claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-preparing-to-face-down-china-in-the-south-china-sea--while-locals-expect-bonanza-of-riches-from-return-of-american-sailors-10290332.html