Only WAR can stop China in the South China Sea – US Admiral delivers TERRIFYING warning

First comes the securing of the South China Sea, then comes China’s power projection into the Western Pacific — America’s doorstep.

 

“China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war” (Image: GETTY )

 

ONLY war can stop China controlling the South China Sea, where it is currently building up bases on artificial reefs, according to a shocking warning from a top US Admiral.

The assessment was made by Admiral Davidson who currently leads the US Indo-Pacific Command, putting him in charge of US armed forces in the region.

Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee he said: “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”

China begins testing electronic warfare assets in South China Sea: report

View of Spratly Islands. Photo: US Navy handout via Reuters

 

Word of US intelligence report comes after assessment that equipment was installed on the contested Spratly islands earlier this year

As the US and China plunge into a trade war, Beijing is apparently preparing for a different type of warfare that some fear may be on the horizon.

China’s Xi Says The Task Of Building A Strong Navy “Has Never Been More Urgent”

 

While most of the world remains fixated on Syria and Russia, China’s PLA Navy is in the midst of an unprecedented provocation in the South China Sea as a fleet of Chinese warships conducts its 3-day combat war drills in the waters south of Sanya, the southern tip of China’s Hainan Island.

With China’s presence in the waters off its southeastern coast growing increasingly threatening, President Xi Jinping declared on Thursday that the task of building a strong navy “has never been as urgent as present”. His remarks were part of a speech made during the country’s largest fleet review since 1949.

Pentagon looks to counter rivals’ hypersonic missiles

A photo illustration courtesy of the US Air Force shows the hypersonic X-51A Waverider cruise missile A photo illustration courtesy of the US Air Force shows the hypersonic X-51A Waverider cruise missile (AFP Photo/Handout)

 

Washington (AFP) – Even as the Pentagon hustles to ensure that its defenses keep pace with North Korea’s fast-growing rocket program, US officials increasingly are turning attention to a new generation of missile threat.

These weapons under development by China and Russia — as well as by the United States — can fly at many times the speed of sound and are designed to beat regular anti-missile defense systems.

In first under Trump, U.S. warship challenges Beijing’s claims in South China Sea

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey prepares for a replenishment-at-sea in the South China Sea May 19, 2017. Picture taken May 19, 2017. Kryzentia Weiermann/Courtesy U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS

 

A U.S. Navy warship sailed within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built up by China in the South China Sea, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, the first such challenge to Beijing in the strategic waterway since U.S. President Donald Trump took office.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the USS Dewey traveled close to the Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, among a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.

The so-called freedom of navigation operation, which is sure to anger China, comes as Trump is seeking Beijing’s cooperation to rein in ally North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

US admiral announces F-22 deployment to Australia and warns of South China Sea confrontation

The United States will begin operating Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor multirole fighters from northern Australia in 2017, Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the US Pacific Command, said in Sydney on 14 December.

Passivity in the Face of Big-Power Aggression

• The West has developed reasonable-sounding rationales for not acting in the face of what is clearly aggression by big powers. That inaction has bought peace, but the peace has never been more than temporary.
• Officials in Beijing and Moscow believe their countries should be bigger than they are today. Faced with little or no resistance, China and Russia are succeeding in redrawing their borders by force.
• Should we be concerned by a nuclear-armed, hostile state falling apart? Of course, but we should be more worried by a hostile state launching nuclear attacks on the Baltics, as the Kremlin has repeatedly threatened to do.
• The Chinese and Russians may be villains, but it is we, through inaction, who have permitted them to be villainous. The choice is no longer risk versus no risk. The choice is which awful risk to assume.

Speaking in April at the Aspen Security Forum in London, Douglas Lute, Washington’s permanent representative to NATO, said:

“So essentially there is a sense that, yes, there is a new more assertive, maybe even more aggressive Russia, but that fundamentally Russia is a state in decline. We have conversations in NATO headquarters about states in decline and arrive at two fundamental models: states in rapid decline which typically lead to chaos and breakdown, and states in gradual decline. Then we ask ourselves: Which of these two tracks would we rather have our nearest, most militarily capable neighbor, with thousands of nuclear weapons, move along? To many, trying to manage Russia’s decline seems more attractive than a failed state of that size and magnitude right on the border of NATO.”

China pursuing huge South China Sea land reclamation: US

China has dramatically ramped up its land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea this year, building artificial islands at an unprecedented pace to bolster its territorial claims in the disputed area, US officials said Friday.

The rapid construction of artificial islands in the strategic waters comes to 2,000 acres (800 hectares), with 75 percent of the total in the last five months, officials said.

“China has expanded the acreage on the outposts it occupies by some four hundred times,” said a US defense official.

China Takes Nuclear Weapons Underwater Where Prying Eyes Can’t See

China is preparing to arm its stealthiest submarines with nuclear missiles that could reach the U.S., cloaking its arsenal with the invisibility needed to retaliate in the event of an enemy strike.

Fifty years after China carried out its first nuclear test, patrols by the almost impossible-to-detect JIN class submarines armed with nuclear JL–2 ballistic missiles will give President Xi Jinping greater agility to respond to an attack.

The nuclear-powered subs will probably conduct initial patrols with the missiles by the end of this year, “giving China its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent,” according to an annual report to Congress submitted in November by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

China Challenges Obama’s Asia Pivot With Rapid Military Buildup

“There are growing concerns about what China is up to in the maritime space,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “There’s a widely held view in the region that the U.S.-China relationship is tipping toward being much more confrontational.”

Obama arrives today in Japan, the start of a weeklong [sic] journey that also will take him to South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. On display throughout will be the challenge of managing the uneasy relationship with China, the U.S.’s No. 2 trading partner and an emerging rival for global influence.

US moves closer to reviving bases in Philippines as part of focus on Asia

Pacific Fleet commander in Manila for talks as next phase of American ‘pivot’ towards Asia takes key step of setting up troops agreement

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With the US pressing ahead with its “pivot” to Asia, Admiral Harry Harris is expected to use his first official trip to the Philippines to discuss a deal which would allow United States troops to be rotated around the country in bigger numbers and in more areas.

“Admiral Harris plans to use this opportunity to discuss the strong and enduring relationships between the US and Philippine navies, the implications of the US military’s rebalance to the Pacific, and the importance of naval engagement and co-operation for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” the US embassy in Manila said yesterday.