artificial islands and articial settlements to claim waters its not something that started with china and its not ilegal, england did/does a lot of that as other countries.
It absolutely is illegal. You'd know this if you had read my post, as I included a quote of an international judgement ruling those islands as illegal. See also Hanzo 's post.
The increase of china military is quite logical for the sheer size of china geography, economy and history, and even then its not comparable with the US.
There's a difference between a military built around the concept of self defense and a military build around power projection. China is most definitely not the former.
And as I said, the Chinese navy has more ships than the US navy (although the US navy has a bigger overall tonnage).
Even with all these news you got, it says nothing about war, no country believes or want that, it does not make any economical and political sense since it would disrupt the economy of all the countries involved and would put then in economical crisis, and 2 of the nations you mentioned have nukes that makes a war even less likely, and in the case of japan and AUS there's US bases and alliances and proximity that china is not dumb to start a war with them so US can declare war. You can make a more compeling case for argentina going to war with england again.
Of course no one
want to start a war, because a war involving China and the US would mean WWIII and MAD. But that doesn't mean that aren't preparing
for the possibility of it, or that that China isn't acting in a bellicose fashion. The countries around China aren't increasing their military for cuddles. They're doing it under the
si vis pacem, para bellum mentallity
Also, don't think I haven't noticed you completly ignoring all the examples of acts of aggressions that China has commited.
And its quite telling that you see china as an enemy.
And it's quite telling that you don't, considering that you turn a blind eye to China's acts of aggression.
And for the record, no I don't have a good view of a nation that has massive human rights problems, has an imperialistic and bellicose attitude towards its neighbors and violate international laws for its own benefit. That's why I also have a problem with Russia, and I'm not exactly fond of the US either.
It's
almost as if I disliked countries based on their behaviours and not because of the color of their skin 🤔
what is this? we have many many bases abroad for 'defense'.
And I would hardly qualify the US as a paragon of non aggression.
this is some horrible logic. The US is just shifting its focus to the Indo-Pacific. Biden is not pulling a trump, he's actually pushing forward what he feels are the bigger concerns.
Sure, but there was no reason to exclude France from the whole thing considering they have interests in the Pacific. Instead he just chose to fuck them over.
Because both countries are much more populous than the US and eventually will leave the US behind in terms of GDP.
And I donno, maybe the people who believe in American hegemony and wEsTeRn cIvIlIzAtIoN VaLuEs are going to be okay to playing second fiddle to a non white country on the global stage, I am definitely rooting for that future and will do whatever that is in my limited power to make it happen.
When your dislike for America has you rooting for China who's actively commiting genocide, is probably time to reevaluate your position.
I guess I'm a little confused why France is so upset about this. They have nuclear subs too, if you don't want Australia looking elsewhere offer them your best tech.
Australia specifically demanded diesel subs. The subs that Australia ordered were originally nuclear powered submarines that were modified to diesel specifically at Australia's request, and Australia awarded them the contract as a result.
Also, there's a lot more to this whole issue than just the subs. It has a lot more to do with the way the whole thing has been handled.
I have no doubt that much of the issues with the sub deal originated with the specifications that Australia wanted. However, the French did sign up and commit to build the subs knowing the vast amount of these challenges.
As much as this whole thing is about china and Australia relations, it's also about Australia (as a customer) choosing not to proceed with a defence contract that simply wasn't working.
Hopefully this leads to better tendering and procurement processes in the future where parties realise that some of these 'too big to cancel' megaprojects are in fact cancelable.
Yup, if a contract almost doubles in price and has delays all while offering a much more limited option than competing offerings maybe the country offering the deal shouldn't have a temper tantrum when the buyer says that it's cancelling the deal.
I mean, Australia could've asked for nuclear powered version of the Barracuda and pretty much any delay/cost overrun would've evaporated overnight.
I also remember reading somewhere that Australia changed the specs during the development, which played a part in the delays/cost increase, but I'm not sure how true this is.
For what it's worth, Naval Group claims that they "delivered on all its commitments."
And this is just my personal opinion, but I don't think Australia is done with its submarines troubles. The US is well known for having delays and costs overrun on their military programs, and the
Virginia-class subs have issues with wearing out early. Add to this the fact that Australia just gave them a carte blanche in terms of costs and I feel like you won't be seeing these subs in a long, long time.
