Richardcyoung.com

  • Home
  • Debbie Young
  • Jimmy Buffett
  • Key West
  • Your Survival Guy
  • How We Are Different
  • Paris
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • The Great Reset
  • The Swiss Way
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • Dick Young
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool
  • Anti-Gun Control
  • Anti-Digital Currency
  • Joel Salatin & Alfie Oakes
  • World Gold Mine Production
  • Fidelity & Wellington Since 1971
  • Hillsdale College
  • Babson College
  • Artificial Intelligence Opposed
  • Contact Us

Has China Already Taken Control of the South China Sea?

March 13, 2023 By The Editors

Source: ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS, May 2012 Office of the Secretary of Defense

In The Wall Street Journal, Niharika Mandhana suggests that “The U.S. missed the moment to hold back China’s buildup in part because it was focused on collaborating with Beijing on global issues such as North Korea and Iran, and was preoccupied by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Now, she suggests that China has effectively boxed the U.S. out of the South China Sea. She writes:

In early February, a Philippine coast guard vessel approached a small outpost in the South China Sea when it was hit by green laser beams that temporarily blinded its crew. The source was a Chinese coast guard ship, which Philippine authorities said approached dangerously close.

A few weeks earlier, the U.S. military accused a Chinese fighter pilot of another unsafe action over the waterway—flying within 20 feet of the nose of a U.S. Air Force aircraft.

Before that came a November incident involving a Philippine boat that was towing debris from a Chinese rocket launch. China’s coast guard deployed an inflatable boat to cut the tow line and retrieve the object, said Philippine officials.

Beijing is becoming the dominant force in the South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes each year, a position it has advanced step-by-step over the past decade. With incremental moves that stay below the threshold of provoking conflict, China has gradually changed both the geography and the balance of power in the area.

The disputed sea is ringed by China, Taiwan and Southeast Asian nations, but Beijing claims nearly all of it. It has turned reefs into artificial islands, then into military bases, with missiles, radar systems and air strips that are a problem for the U.S. Navy. It has built a large coast guard that among other things harasses offshore oil-and-gas operations of Southeast Asian nations, and a fishing militia that swarms the rich fishing waters, lingering for days.

The U.S. missed the moment to hold back China’s buildup in part because it was focused on collaborating with Beijing on global issues such as North Korea and Iran, and was preoccupied by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. China also stated outright in 2015 that it didn’t intend to militarize the South China Sea.

China’s broader challenge to America’s long pre-eminence across the Indo-Pacific region threatens U.S. allies such as Japan, and puts the vast majority of the world’s advanced semiconductors, which are produced in Taiwan, at risk. China’s buildup in the South China Sea especially threatens the Philippines, a U.S. ally.

Former U.S. and Southeast Asian officials and security analysts warn that China’s gains in the waters are now so entrenched that, short of military conflict, they are unlikely to be reversed.

“They have such a reach now into the South China Sea with sea power and air power” they could obstruct or interfere with international trade, said retired Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., who long was a senior naval officer in the region and led the U.S. Pacific Command from 2015 to 2018. The U.S. would have to decide if it would go to war with China if it carried out such actions, he said.

If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.

Related Posts

  • Who Owns the South China Sea Islands?
  • America's Best Course in the South China Sea
  • Inside China’s Plan to Overwhelm and Dominate the South China Sea
  • Why Should America Defend Over 400-Million People Around the South China Sea?
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
The Editors
The Editors
The Editors
Latest posts by The Editors (see all)
  • Russian Black Sea Fleet Decimated - May 6, 2025
  • Houthis Target Israel Again - May 5, 2025
  • What Happens when AI Makes Things Up? - April 24, 2025

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • Warning! Your Survival Guy’s on a Boil Water Advisory
  • Soros’s Open Society Foundation, Charles Koch Team Up
  • Thanks to America’s Worst President
  • The Claremont Institute: Protecting the American Way of Life
  • Why Investors Should Forget Prices and Focus on Income
  • The Masters of the Universe Align Themselves with CHINA Using YOUR Money?
  • Feds Raid America’s Number One Patriot: Naples Florida’s Alfie Oakes
  • Americans Fleeing High Tax States for Growth Corridors
  • Mises and Rothbard Finally Get Their Due
  • Why You Miss Richard C. Young’s Monster Master List

Our Most Popular Posts

  • Not a Fan of For-Profit Medicine and the Pharmaceutical Industries
  • TRUMP: More SALT Please
  • Texas Investigates Plans for "Muslim City"
  • The Foolishness of Eliminating Cash
  • Is Trump Resetting His Relationship with Israel?
  • The Riviera: A Sunny Place for Shady People
  • An American in Rome
  • The Arctic Is No Longer Safe for NATO
  • A Contemptable Little Twerp
  • The Problems with REAL ID

Compensation was paid to utilize rankings. Click here to read full disclosure.

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Congratulations on Graduation Day from Work to Retirement “2.0 and Go”
  • Could an Economic Slowdown Curb Global Oil Consumption Growth?
  • No SALT Please: Part II
  • Vertical Aerospace Advances Toward VX4 Certification
  • U.S. Producer Inflation Cools as Service Prices Slide
  • Graduating from Work to Retirement: Now What? Part 1
  • U.S. Scraps Biden-era Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule
  • Power Bills Surge as Utilities Invest in Infrastructure
  • xAI Races Toward 1 Million GPUs
  • TRUMP: More SALT Please

RSS Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • Congratulations on Graduation Day from Work to Retirement “2.0 and Go”
  • $3 Million Makeover of the International Tennis Hall of Fame
  • No SALT Please: Part II
  • Graduating from Work to Retirement: Now What? Part 1
  • You’re Not Dreaming, Food Prices Are Falling
  • Can America Generate Enough Power for New Data Centers?
  • TRUMP: More SALT Please
  • Inflation Slows Again Under Trump
  • WARNING: Your Survival Guy and Gal in the Fog
  • Prior Planning: Thank You, Mom

US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool

My Key West Garden Office

Your Retirement Life: Traveling the Efficient Frontier

Live a Long Life

Your Survival Guy’s Mt. Rushmore of Investing Legends

“Then One Day the Grandfather was Gone”

Copyright © 2025 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives