No kidding.
Start using Desktops again. It's what God intended.
Your one-liners have quickly made you one of my favourite posters.
Ha, yeah, it's a menace.
The one thing I don't understand about China in this case is why they chose to sacrifice the good will of their neighbors for these islands. Yes they extend their EEZ but honestly it's not like these bodies of water are virgin landscapes ready for lucrative exploitation. I would have thought they would flex their muscle where it might pay dividends like Africa or the Middle East/Central Asia.
The Chinese are positively paranoid re: territorial integrity. Even after the return of Hong Kong, there is still a distinct fear in their culture about being forced into unequal treaties again.
Many of these disputed territories are territories that were claimed by China before the collapse of the empire, and since the CCP is quite openly utilising nationalism to deal with the obvious social dislocation caused by the abandonment of communism, this has the potential to backfire on them and force them into dangerous diplomatic confrontations they'd prefer to avoid. There were a series of violent demonstrations against Japan a few years ago which coincided with an attempt by the CCP to negotiate a new commercial treaty with Japan, for example, which was most embarrassing to Beijing.
There are a range of issues forcing the Chinese to be far more territorially aggressive than would seem wise, especially as regards South Korea, which the CCP has spent over a decade attempting to slowly detach from the US-Japan alliance.
The big issue, of course, is Taiwan. China literally cannot afford to recognise Taiwanese independence; it would undermine the very foundation of the Chinese state. China is comprised of several different ethnic groups, many of whom have pro-independence movements, the obvious example being Tibet. The CCP fears that if they back down on Taiwan, they will be forced, either through political pressure or outright rebellion, to relinquish control of the several autonomous regions with pro-independence factions. As such, they feel the need to behave aggressively in the several island chains they claim, as even though they likely don't care about the islands themselves, backing down over even a single one of their claims could set a precedent for the independence of Taiwan. That is something the Chinese simply cannot allow.
Those who are saying that this plays right into America's hands are probably right. Who else are they going to turn to? Russia?
What's interesting I think is how exactly all of this is going to unfold, as China's power and influence grows. There are a couple potential unresolved border issues that could at some point in the future turn into hotspots too.
China has border issues with virtually every one of its neighbours, even North Korea. So yeah, there's a huge potential risk of escalation there. India and Taiwan are the issues that could most seriously threaten the Chinese.
