The Most Dangerous Country in the World is Still China

Israel vs Hamas. Russia vs Ukraine. Terrible places with terrible consequences. Easily expandable conflicts drawing global attention. North Korea continuously saber-rattling and testing her submarines, rockets and nukes. Iran’s surrogates battling it out as she cozies up to Russia. Deploying a drone carrier. But the most dangerous country on earth, with the largest navy in the world and a determination to own the oceans and seas in her region. With a network of industrial and government spies bringing technology and manufacturing capacity that threatens the very industries she stole patents from. Letting ally Russia fight battles to drain NATO and force the United States from supporting nations beyond her borders. Hacking purportedly “secure” computers everywhere, sowing mis- and dis-information to distort elections in democratic countries, particularly the United States. The PEOPLES’ REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC).

While the world is distracted, China is using her air force, navy and her man-made island military base in the Spratley Islands to circle the regional navigable waters and traditional territorial waters of other nations… and claim control of those waters as belonging exclusively to China. For purposes of mining undersea wealth, harvesting fish and totally controlling passage against any other nation. British and American naval vessels have been followed “danger close” by the PLA ships. (China’s armed forces are all assembled under the name “Peoples’ Liberation Army” or PLA). US naval aircraft have had similar confrontations with PRC jet fighters.

While we tend to focus on airspace and sea-based military incursions by the PRC in and around Taiwan, which China has repeatedly stated is and always has been a legitimate province of China – oddly a “one state” narrative that is technically supported by the US – China is staking her regional claim over local seas in direct challenges to other regional nations. Most recently, the Philippines. Again. As Jim Gomez and Simina Mistreanu, writing for the October 23rd Associated Press, explain, after Chinese naval vessels blocked and collided with two Filipino ships off a contested shoal in the South China Sea:

“Philippine diplomats summoned a Chinese Embassy official in Manila on Monday for a strongly worded protest following Sunday’s [10/22] collisions off Second Thomas Shoal. No injuries were reported but the encounters damaged a Philippine coast guard ship and a wooden-hulled supply boat operated by navy personnel, officials said.

“President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called an emergency meeting with the defense secretary and other top military and security officials to discuss the latest hostilities in the disputed waters. The Philippines and other neighbors of China have resisted Beijing's sweeping territorial claims over virtually the entire South China Sea, and some, like Manila, have sought U.S. military support as incidents multiply.

“After the meeting, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro blasted China in a news conference for resorting to ‘brute force’ that he said endangered Filipino crew members and for twisting the facts to conceal its aggression… ‘The Philippine government views the latest aggression by China as a blatant violation of international law,’ Teodoro said. ‘China has no legal right or authority to conduct law enforcement operations in our territorial waters and in our exclusive economic zone.’

“Marcos ordered an investigation of the high-sea collisions, Teodoro said, but he refused to disclose what steps the Philippine government would take… ‘We are taking these incidents seriously at the highest levels of government,’ he said, adding that the government called for a news conference to provide accurate facts. ‘The Chinese government is deliberately obfuscating the truth,’ the defense chief said.

“The Philippines also plans to raise its alarm over the Chinese ships’ dangerous maneuvers in talks between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on a proposed nonaggression pact — a ‘code of conduct’ — to prevent a major armed conflict in the South China Sea. Beijing is hosting the three-day negotiations starting Monday [10/23], two Philippine officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to publicly discuss details of the talks.

“Teodoro said it was ‘very ironic’ that China was hosting the talks that aim to prevent major conflicts at sea when they just committed “a blatant disregard of international law."… The territorial conflicts involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have long been regarded as a flashpoint in a delicate fault line in the U.S.-China rivalry.

“About five Chinese coast guard ships, eight accompanying vessels and two navy ships formed a blockade on Sunday to prevent two Philippine coast guard ships and two boats from delivering food and other supplies to Filipino forces stationed at Second Thomas Shoal aboard a marooned navy ship, Philippine coast guard Commodore Jay Tarriela said… During the standoff, one of the Philippine coast guard ships and a supply boat were separately hit by a Chinese coast guard ship and a vessel. Only one of the two Filipino boats managed to deliver supplies to Philippine forces, Tarriela said.”

This confrontation is nothing new. China defaulted in an arbitration resulting in 2016 decision by a tribunal set up in The Hague under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea after the Philippine government complained in 2013 about China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea. The United States repeated that it would defend the Philippines against any PRC attack as it is obligated to do under the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. What makes China even more dangerous is the need of de facto President for life Xi Jinping for distractions from his massively failed domestic economic policies resulting in exceptionally high unemployment among younger workers and the serial collapse of real estate values across China. An angry, defensive dictator with a huge military and a history of brutality should put us all on red alert.

I’m Peter Dekom, and with all of the conflict in the world, sometimes it’s easy to miss even the raging elephant in the room.