Friendly gestures and absurd claims are a Chinese ploy to gain control of territory

Vietnam and the Philippines also make a token presence. China maintains seven military outposts in the Spratly Islands; three of them having airbases, helipads, aircraft hangers, naval port facilities, surveillance radars and air defence and anti-ship missile sites.

Vietnam has in the Spratly islands platforms known as economic, scientific and technological service stations.

Vietnam has been making continuous improvements to its outposts, including defensive positions and infrastructure. Beijing, trying to extend its hegemony over the entire South China Sea, is not prepared to accept this.

The Philippines, too, occupies nine features in the Spratly Islands; and maintains an air strip and a coast guard station.

The Chinese navy is actively preventing the Philippines from keeping its stations in the Spratly islands supplied with rations, particularly at the Second Thomas Shoal.

Manila having a security pact with Washington, China has not tried to maintain a fa?ade of friendship with the Philippines.

Here it is a case of open coercion. Earlier in March this year, the Chinese coast guard blocked and used water cannons against vessels of the Philippines that slightly injured a Filipino admiral and four of his sailors near the Second Thomas Shoal.

Expressing concern at the Chinese actions, U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned on March 19 use of water cannons by Chinese ships, blocking manoeuvres, close shadowing and other dangerous operations.

The South China Sea is a major maritime route connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.

One quarter of the world?s seaborne trade passes through the sea lanes that border the Spratly islands. By occupying the Spratly group of islands, China can control these sea lanes.

China can easily arm-twist Japan which imports the bulk of its energy needs through these sea lanes.

This is the strategic interest of Beijing, say analysts, just as it is in the strategic interest of Beijing to gain control of Arunachal Pradesh in India so that it can easily arm-twist Bhutan and gain an entry to the warm water port of Chittagong in Bangladesh through the plains of north Bengal.

There is a school of thought that argues that for historical and political reasons China suffers from a sense of lack of security.

That?s why it wants to gain control of the whole of the South China Sea, to preclude the possibility of a sea-borne attack on the southern flanks of China.

Apologists of China have also advanced a similar argument to defend the Chinese occupation of Tibet: to prevent an attack on China from the south-west.

All these arguments, however, do not stand the test of reason. China has been in firm control of Tibet since 1959.

There is no explanation why the Chinese army is occupying the disputed areas on the Line of Actual Control with India.

Nor does it explain why China is trying to disturb the status quo and extend its influence in the group of islands in the Indo-Pacific, having signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands in 2022. The real reason is to expand the hegemony of China globally.

(english.khabarhub.com)