The Chinese regime does more than claim the Spratley islands. It claims both the Paracels and Spratleys, and claims the entire South China Sea (btw, known in Vietnam as the East Sea), right out to the very shorelines of neighboring countries. The Paracels were seized by China from Vietnam via military conquest in 1974, and half of the Sptratleys were similarly conquered in 1988. Simply fishing in these waters has landed hundreds of poor Vietnamese fisher-folk in Chinese jails, held by China's imperial navy for months at a time for ridiculous ransoms.
Ken makes a good point that the US had done much the same in other cases such as the Johnston Atoll. I think a better comparison however is with the Monroe Doctrine. As an emerging imperialist power, China similarly begins by declaring that it owns its own region. Leftists praising "socialist" China and finding excuses to shill for its imperial piracy in the South China Sea will have a lot of fun explaining how "socialist" Vietnam is its main victim and opponent. If you look at the geography, it is easy to see why Vietnam sees China, immediately to its north (and east in its sea) as its most dangerous imperialist threat, and hence reaches out to both the US and Russia, in the same way as Cuba, when you see the geography, reaches out to Russia and China to balance against the key imperialist threat to its north. On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 7:46 AM Ken Hiebert <[email protected]> wrote: > One of the US criticisms of China has to do with China building up the > Spratly islands and claiming them for China. I can see that China’s > neighbours have reason to object to this. But it fair to point out that > the US did much the same decades ago on the Johnston Atoll, southwest of > Hawaii. > ken h > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_Atoll > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#7479): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/7479 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/81553704/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
