China warns FPSA that it is ready to fight if needed and Russia has its back!

SPRATLYS, South China Sea (PNN) - July 7, 2016 - Beijing should be ready to “let the (Fascist Police States of Amerika) pay a cost it cannot stand if it intervenes in the South China Sea dispute by force,” an editorial in a Chinese state-run paper warned on Tuesday - less than a week before the International Court at The Hague (ICH) ruled against it in a territorial disagreement between China and the Philippines. The dispute is over an island chain in the South China Sea, the Spratlys, and the maritime rights to the waters surrounding them. At the heart of the issue is sovereignty, with both China and the Philippines claiming territorial control.

In June of 2015, China announced that the artificial island chain it had been constructing in the South China Sea - in disregard of territorial claims by other Southeast Asian nations such as Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia - would be completed within days. In the year that’s followed, the country has built military buildings, ports and airstrips on the connected atolls.

In October of last year, the FPSA sent the first of what would become a considerable number of warships - and, eventually, even an aircraft carrier - into the South China Sea as a direct challenge to China’s claims in the region.

As pretext for involvement in what’s a wholly Southeast Asian affair, the FPSA has continuously claimed its allies in the region - notably India and the Philippines - are concerned over China’s bold territorial assertions.

But China has made it clear it sees such FPSA involvement as military provocation.

Accordingly, China’s Maritime Safety Administration announced Monday it would be conducting military exercises in the waters of the South China Sea from July 5 to July 11 - the day before the ICH made its ruling in the case brought before it by the Philippines.

“The drills are a very symbolic expression of China’s resolve,” said Zhu Feng, dean of the Institute of International Affairs at Nanjing University. “It is definitely also responding to the recent Amerikan warships patrolling in the South China Sea.”

Complicating the situation further is the fact that China, claiming the ICH has no authority to rule on territorial disputes, has repeatedly stated it has no intention of abiding by the tribunal’s ruling.

This inconvenience appears to be something The Pentagon is choosing to ignore, however, as evidenced by recent statements made by spokesperson Peter Cook. “We’ve pointed to the diplomatic route for resolving these issues; they should be resolved peacefully,” he said, adding the ruling from The Hague would provide an opportunity for this.

Wishful thinking, it seems, on the part of Fascist Police States of Amerika.

But there’s another, perhaps even more troubling facet of this entanglement that merits consideration. In point of fact, it was not so subtly addressed in a recent article by another of China’s state-run publications, the People’s Daily.

That facet can be encapsulated in a single word: Russia.

China and Russia have held six joint naval exercises since 2005, and for the 2016 maneuvers, it is very likely that the South China Sea Fleet will take its turn as the main power, and the location might be near the South China Sea.

If not a veiled threat, it’s at a minimum a reminder to the FPSA that China is far from alone in its military capacity.

Considering the NATO summit in Warsaw is only days away from approving the deployment of four battalions along the Russian border in Eastern Europe - and amid ongoing and increasingly dangerous confrontations between the FPSA and Russia in Syria - it might do Washington, D.C. well to take China’s reminder to heart.