China’s Aggression in the South China Sea

Frank Gaffney spoke with Dr. Peter Navarro on Secure Freedom Radio this week about what’s happening in China and how it relates to the U.S. Navarro is an expert on the subject and teaches at the Merage School of Business at UC Irvine. He is also the co-author of “Warning Order: China Prepares for Conflict and Why We Must Do the Same.”

The book is actually available for free download here.

Gaffney began their discussion by asking about recent talks between the U.S. and China.  Navarro provided some background:

“China’s playing us, basically. China on the one hand, is steadily expanding its empire in the South China Sea. Now for your listeners, the South China Sea is a body of water through which one third of all global shipping goes.  You go from the Strait of Malacca, over to Taiwan and you have this body of water between countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and China to the north and then to the south Indonesia and the Philippines, it’s this huge expanse. China’s been putting a series of island fortresses in this and we have been complaining, Ash Carter, the Secretary of Defense has been complaining but China keeps doing what it’s doing and in typical Chinese fashion, it says – Oh it’s just tourist destinations, all civilians. Meanwhile, military installations are going in there, so what China wants to do with these negotiations is stall us so that by fait accompli, basically have these island fortresses that threaten America and its allies in Asia.”

Navarro also suggests that a major court decision is coming over China’s claims to the South China Sea and that most people expect China to lose the case, after which all hell could break loose.

Drilling down, Gaffney asked if China will ultimately declare the region an air defense zone and if they did, could they make it stick? Navarro responded:

“Well they won’t have the capacity to make it stick today but the problem is that over time… Ten, twenty years, they’re going to have a military arsenal three times the size of ours which has been totally designed by the Pentagon because they stole all the designs, so it’s a serious issue.”

For perspective, Navarro likened China’s actions to those of Imperial Japan in the run up to World War II, when they took control of Iwo Jima, Guam and other territories.

“Think about if you’re the Philippines and you don’t have an American aircraft carrier in your hip pocket to defend yourself and China’s setting up these fortress garrisons with 10,000 foot runways and running their ships within a hundred miles of your coast. I mean, what are you gonna do?”