Another Hawk in the Party Calls for PLA Military Action in South China Sea

Today we see another Chinese hawk advocating military action, this time against the Philippines and Vietnam. I encourage everyone to read the entire editorial. Be careful to neither casually dismiss nor overstate the importance of this editorial, because this is a sanctioned editorial by the Party's mouthpiece Global Times, but it also only one of many opinions among Chinese Party leadership regarding how to manage the South China Sea tensions over energy resources. The author is identified as the strategic analyst of China Energy Fund Committee.

It’s very amusing to see some of the countries vow to threaten or even confront China with force just because the US announced that it has “returned to Asia.”

The tension of war is escalating second by second but the initiative is not in our hand. China should take part in the exploitation of oil and gas in South China Sea.

For those who infringe upon our sovereignty to steal the oil, we need to warn them politely, and then take action if they don’t respond.

We shouldn’t waste the opportunity to launch some tiny-scale battles that could deter provocateurs from going further.

By the way, I think it’s necessary to figure out who is really afraid of being involved in military activities. There are more than 1,000 oil and gas wells plus four airports and numerous other facilities in the area but none of them is built by China.

Everything will be burned to the ground should a military conflict break out. Who’ll suffer most when Western oil giants withdraw?

But out there could just be an ideal place to punish them. Such punishment should be restricted only to the Philippines and Vietnam, who have been acting extremely aggressive these days.

The impacts of nationalism will only create more tension between the cautious and hawkish elements of the Party moving forward. The other issue is that there are as many reasons to be concerned with the leadership changes next year as there are to be heartened.

It is a time of change in China. A time when outsiders should be both excited for the future of China while remaining cautious of that future as well. Predicting the results of the rapid growth in China with any accuracy is very difficult. Beware of all who aren't very cautious of China's intentions, because even Chinese leaders can't predict the future as they focus on the consolidation of their own power while balancing their intentional nationalism against the tensions that result from greater demands of a rapidly growing society.

It does concern me that we see ranking members of the Party in the Energy sector aligned with the hawks of the PLA, because it fits easily into the discussions and analysis regarding why China would take a more militarily hawkish policy towards other nations, including their regional neighbors.