Philippines, US start joint naval exercise as tension Mounts Between Vietnam, China in South China Sea

Philippines May Ask US to Send Spy Planes to South China Sea:

US to shift most of naval fleet to Pacific by 2020 because of growing tension with China and our growing list of protectorates.

Philippines, US start joint naval exercise: The Philippines and the US formally opened a nine-day joint naval exercise in the southern Philippine city of General Santos on Monday, according to army official. Armed Forces Eastern Mindanao Command Chief Lt Gen Jorge Segovia and US Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Tomas led the formal opening of the annual training exercise more known as Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT).

Philippine and US Navy and Coast Guard personnel will participate in CARAT. Armed Forces Spokesman Colonel Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos said the exercise will test the personnel and the naval assets' operational readiness of both countries and improve Philippine naval defense.

Tension Mounts Between Vietnam, China :Vietnam’s new Law on the Sea, passed last week, has sparked a fresh round of tensions with China about competing territory in the South China Sea. The face-off with China quickly escalated. The same day Vietnam passed the Law on the Sea, China’s Foreign Ministry announced it had raised the level of governance on three groups of islands in the South China Sea from county to prefectural level, under the control of Sansha city.

The seat of government will be on Woody Island, which is part of the Paracels, an area China took from what was then South Vietnam in 1974.Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry calls the move illegal and says the lots set aside by China were entirely within Vietnam's 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, as laid out in the Untied Nations Law on the Sea.

As the US to shift most of naval fleet to Pacific by 2020 because of growing tension with China and our growing list of protectorates.

China's military warns of confrontation over seas: China's military warned the United States that U.S.-Philippine military exercises have raised risks of armed confrontation over the disputed South China Sea, in the toughest high-level warning yet after weeks of tension. China's official Liberation Army Daily warned that recent jostling with the Philippines over disputed seas where both countries have sent ships could boil over into outright conflict, and laid much of the blame at Washington's door.

As we discussed there have been at least three cases of groups of Chinese military ships crossing through the area of Okinawa since November 2008, first 4 ships then 6 then 8 and now 10 including destroyers and submarines. That case appeared to be the first involving surfaced submarines. The group of 10 ships, including the submarines, was observed about 90 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of Okinawa in international waters.

Two missile destroyers and three frigate ships from the same group were spotted participating in a flight exercise of carrier-based helicopters April 7-9, the Defense Ministry's Joint Staff Office said in a statement The war ships were in international waters but close to Okinawa and Japan was not notified. That area as you may know has natural resources under the ocean and islands claimed by both Nations. It is important that we stay in Okinawa as China plays a more important role in Asia and around the world as she gains strength militarily and economically as we just discussed.

As most know by now China also now has a retrofitted Russian carrier and is in the process of building her own in order to help further her demands that all the seas near China are hers. It is no wonder that being the guardian of all the nations around China we would be moving our navies to the area and any move to the area would be interpreted as a move to counter China.

Japan expressed concern over what it called a lack of transparency in China's massive defence spending, saying the secrecy posed a "threat" to Tokyo. China's military budget jumped 11.2 percent year on year to $106 billion in 2012, a rise that has caused unease around the region and especially in Tokyo.

Japan's Parliamentary senior vice-minister of defense Shu Watanabe said. "There is expansion of the military budget and that is not transparent," he told defence chiefs and senior officials attending an Asia security summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore.

US to shift most of naval fleet to Pacific by 2020: US will shift the majority of its naval fleet to the Pacific by 2020 as part of a new strategic focus on Asia, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta told a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The decision to deploy more ships to the Pacific Ocean, along with expanding a network of military partnerships, was part of a "steady, deliberate" effort to bolster the US role in an area deemed vital to America's future, he said.

And he insisted the switch in strategy was not a challenge to China, saying it was compatible with the development and growth of the fast-growing Asian power. Panetta said "by 2020, the Navy will re-posture its forces from today's roughly 50/50 percent split between the Pacific and the Atlantic to about a 60/40 split between those oceans. "That will include six aircraft carriers in this region, a majority of our cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships, and submarines." The US Navy currently has a fleet of 285 ships, with about half of those vessels deployed or assigned to the Pacific.

Other nations must take stand on China: Philippines: The Philippine foreign secretary called on other nations to take a stand on China's new aggressiveness in a simmering territorial dispute over a shoal in the South China Sea. Albert del Rosario on Sunday warned in a statement that other nations would be affected by China's claim over the mineral-rich area if they did not speak up now, like the Philippines is doing.

He added that China's efforts to claim the entire South China Sea as its territory was "clearly baseless." The statement came amid increased tensions after China deployed ships near the Scarborough Shoal, an outcropping in the South China Sea just about 230 kilometres (140 miles) from the Philippines' main island of Luzon. The nearest Chinese land mass from Scarborough Shoal is Hainan province, 1,200 kilometres, (750 miles) to the northwest, according to Philippine naval maps given to the media.

The six days of Chinese-Russian drills that took place in the Yellow Sea off the city of Qingdao in Shandong province on China's east coast, the official China News Service said. China and Russia have held four joint military drills since 2005, but these are the first dedicated naval exercises, a Chinese expert said. Yin Zhuo, who advises the Chinese navy, said the number of ships involved was unprecedented - China has 16 naval vessels and two submarines taking part in this exercise while Russia has four warships.

Japan's defense ministry said in a recent report that China was becoming increasingly active in waters near Japanese territory while Russia was holding more frequent military exercises in its far east region. These exercises by the way are going on at the same time as our build up in Australia to hem China in and our on going naval exercise with the Philippines.

The long run up to the China sea's conflict and the US and allies verse Russia and China competing naval muscle flexing I mean exercises

Being in a superior position puts one in a unique position of power and that power must be handled gracefully, with humility, responsibly, and not abused. That is something I taught all my sons and America under Bush did a lousy job of handling. I am a little worried that China too is getting a little too heavy handed and abusive with her new position of power and beginning to take what she wants instead of being content with what she has which is what I constantly lecture has to be the case if we are to have a future. The time when man and the planet could handle war and colonialism is over, period or else!

We are Taiwan's, Vietnam's, Australior's, and Japan's protectors. As China flex's their military muscles in the area we are not supposed to worry. Just what are we supposed to think they are going to do with their advanced weaponry, missiles, stealth aircraft, aircraft carriers and the like. Their threats are going to become more ominous until they cannot be ignored and it is too late. We have been here before. The world was not supposed to worry as Hitler built his arsenal and we know how that turned out.



James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com