Just for fun on Saturday I was channel surfing and stumbled across a 24/7 South Korean cable news channel. They showed boats on the screen, and since I liked boats, I watched.
The basic summary is right there in the post title. Red China is doing something shady.
Specifically this all revolves around several atolls that K'mpec had heard of but I'm sure 95% of the Canadian population hasn't: the Spratley Islands. Claimed by several countries (China, Red China, Vietnam, and the Philippines), the Sabina Shoal (one of the islands) are physically located about 135km from Philippine's Panay Island, definitely putting it within the 200-km Economic Exclusion Zone (the most northwest portion, the "North Danger Reef", is about 450km away). As my helpful South Korean TV channel pointed out, however, this same North Danger Reef is the part closest to China, and is a little over 900km from the island of Hainan.
In 1999, the Philippines intentionally grounded an old warship on a shoal closer to Sabina (James Bond style), and the Chinese Coast Guard has been using quasi-legal methods to keep naval resupply ships from reaching the craft. For those keeping score, it's slightly inside the Philippines' EEZ and is only contested between China and the Philippines. Again, the helpful chaps from South Korea who are under no anti-Chinese sentiment whatsoever point out that it's almost 1400km to get to mainland Red China (Macau) from the atoll.
However, mere facts and logic have no real bearing to the Chicoms. The Spratley Islands have oil and the People's Republic wants it. Unlike places like Canada and Africa, fellow asian countries know that every promise of free money from Xi comes with a price tag too horrible to fathom, which leaves the typical Chinese strategy of bribery off the table. Naked aggression is the next obvious ploy, and this sort of salami tactics using water cannons today and real cannons tomorrow seems designed to provoke FakePresident Asterisk into either overreacting and provoking a searing diplomatic response, or else not reacting enough and signalling that the next attempt will be even more successful.
