In A Sinking Economy, China's Military Ambitions Grow
06:43 PM ET
A Chinese destroyer fires an anti-submarine missile during naval drills in the East China Sea on May 24, 2014. AP View Enlarged Image
Geopolitics: Its economy on the rocks, a normal state would call a pause to military expenditures absent a threat. Not so for one bent on distracting from its failures. Exhibit A: China's accelerated buildup in the South China Sea.
Not even a falling currency, deep economic trouble or a port in rubble after an industrial blast is slowing China's land reclamation project. It's briskly plunking down artificial islands in disputed waters at the center of the South China Sea, well beyond its own landmass.
This is an unnatural power grab by a historically land-based empire looking for sea power in a nationalistic move to distract the public from its economic failures.
Outgoing U.S. Gen. Ray Odierno warned that China is one of the top four menaces that the U.S. will have to face in coming years. It's a big one, not only because of China's implacable will to build islands against its neighbors' wishes but also because so much is at stake:
The freedom of the seas — the basis for the prosperity and peace of our Southeast Asian and Northeast Asian friends and allies — is under threat.
It doesn't take an expert to recognize that China's move therefore ultimately means a challenge to the U.S., whose own basis of global power is in its navy.
A Pentagon report issued Thursday warns that China's behavior is worse than anyone imagined. During the first half of the year, in the Spratly Islands — a chain of rocks of little use to anyone but Vietnamese, Filipino and Malaysian fishermen needing a place to protect boats in a storm — Beijing built 2,900 acres of landmass, far more than the Pentagon's earlier estimate of 2,000 acres. Last year, it counted just 500 reclaimed acres.
What does China want with all this new land in waters that until now have always been the territory of Asia's littoral states? If its past conduct toward U.S. aircraft in the area is any indicator — it's demanded that U.S. planes check in with Chinese authorities anywhere in the vicinity of its shores — then the aim is dominance.
The hard numbers show it, too. In 2014, Swedish security institute SIPRI reported that Chinese military spending rose 9.7%, while spending in the region as a whole declined 1.5%.
China has no military threat to worry about. It just wants dominance, not only to distract from its economic failures but also to get its claws in while U.S. leadership is weak and its military expenditures are falling. It's well past time for the U.S. to reverse this course.
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