China has purpose-build non-nuclear anti-ship cruise missiles. There is a running game of chicken between the CCP and the US about whether they would dare use them against a US carrier group stationed in the SCS. The way the game theory works out, no they wouldn’t, but the sitting US president needs to have the stones to continue navigating the SCS.
Xi Jinping bluntly promised Obama he would not occupy the SCS, and then did exactly that, and Obama blinked and did nothing. All the other countries in the region, from Japan to Australia to India, are now crapping themselves as China extends further. For example, they are now regularly pushing military ships posing as fishing vessels into Indonesian waters as a repeat of the ‘cabbage leaf’ process they executed in the SCC. Indonesia is in a precarious position because it does not want to be muscled out, but they took on a lot of debt from Belt and Road for stupid initiatives. There are other countries in a worse situation. East Timor has taken on debt from b&r equivalent to a full year of its GDP, and sits on the edge of the Australian oil shelf. Australia is in a weaker situation than it should be due to not having enough coast guard style ships, and the difficulties sourcing world-class conventional attack subs.
This show may be the US signaling that it has learnt its mistake and won’t be had again.
My post could be read as a correction to yours. Unintended. Perhaps I should have replied to randomopining. You made a significant point about the number of Chinese warheads. Once nuclear misses are discounted, I think it is significant that China has a type of non-nuclear missile that is designed for attacking carrier groups.
Yeah Obama was weak in this regard. Actually I've read that Biden had some of the most hawkish views on CCP in the admin. Obama was too naive, he believed in the good of countries etc. And I say this as an Obama support who voted for him.
Realistically though what could he have done? They should've been airtight on the CCP since the 80's 90's.
I agree with the thrust of your comment. The current situation is the result of decades of us (west) misreading the situation, rather than a single event of one US president. We saw what we wanted to see, rather than what was there.
Xi Jinping bluntly promised Obama he would not occupy the SCS, and then did exactly that, and Obama blinked and did nothing. All the other countries in the region, from Japan to Australia to India, are now crapping themselves as China extends further. For example, they are now regularly pushing military ships posing as fishing vessels into Indonesian waters as a repeat of the ‘cabbage leaf’ process they executed in the SCC. Indonesia is in a precarious position because it does not want to be muscled out, but they took on a lot of debt from Belt and Road for stupid initiatives. There are other countries in a worse situation. East Timor has taken on debt from b&r equivalent to a full year of its GDP, and sits on the edge of the Australian oil shelf. Australia is in a weaker situation than it should be due to not having enough coast guard style ships, and the difficulties sourcing world-class conventional attack subs.
This show may be the US signaling that it has learnt its mistake and won’t be had again.