Đảo nhân tạo mà Trung Quốc xây trên Biển Đông 'đang chìm'?

China is facing a major problem with the artificial islands built in the South China Sea. This could become an extremely expensive failure. In 2019, the US accused China of carrying out a bullying strategy in the South China Sea, with bold construction activities to build artificial islands. According to the US press, one of the biggest consequences of building these islands is the possibility of a total war with the US. The Ferry Cross Reef is China's largest land refurbishment project in the South China Sea. China claims sovereignty over the islands in this remote archipelago, where Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam also claim sovereignty. Before 2014, not much had really happened in the Ferry Cross Reef, but now the Reef could be a hot spot for war. As you can see on the map, the disputed areas in the South China Sea are surrounded by many countries. China claims most of the South China Sea is its own, including Huangsha and Changsha, as well as other places such as Dongsha Islands, the Northern Gulf Plains, the Magresville Plains, and the Scarborough Basin. China draws a line of war around these areas, but where does China get the idea that everything in this line of war is part of their territory? Who can make such decisions when there are so many countries in the region that claim sovereignty? In 2016, China sent an official statement to the European Union, saying that, according to China's old versions, since the Han Dynasty, China has had large-scale maritime, commercial, and fishing activities, including the South China Sea as the main area, as the basis for China's maritime activities at that time. The statement continues to say that China has discovered islands, corals, coral reefs, and coral bays. Other countries objected, and the EU did not agree with the statement. The so-called Chinese Nationalist Revolution took place between 1839 and 1949. Prior to this period, China's economy was six times larger than that of Britain and 20 times larger than that of the United States, but everything changed, and it changed relatively quickly. During this period, the country was gradually weakening, leading to China's territory falling into the hands of the powerful. China has gone through a century of losses. The British launched military battles with China in World War I, from 1839 to 1842, when China lost Hong Kong. In World War II, from 1856 to 1860, France and Britain defeated China. This was not a good time for China, when it signed the terms of what they now call an unequal treaty. During this period of history, the French and the British even raided China's summer palaces. This period was certainly a humiliation for China, which some scholars believe is partly the reason for China's rampant attitude. After the First Sino-Japanese War, from 1894 to 1895, China was defeated by Japan and had to surrender to Taiwan. The Tang Dynasty conquered part of Taiwan at the end of the 17th century, but the Tang Dynasty was a dynasty of the Manchu people, not a system of the Han people. The Tang Dynasty invaded Taiwan in 1683. In 1945, Japan was defeated in World War II, and then China regained its territories. Taiwan reintegrated into the People's Republic of China. In 1949, the People's Republic of China was defeated by Mao Zedong's Communist Party of China. The People's Republic of China left for Taiwan, but it still claimed sovereignty over the South China Sea. The 11-storey territory around the South China Sea appeared under the Tsong dynasty. In 1953, China amended it to 9-storey. For historical reasons, China claims that it has nothing to argue about its claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea. China and Taiwan both claim sovereignty over this region, while other countries claim only part of it. Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Brunei oppose China's claims. Taiwan certainly does not agree. In recent years, Vietnam has created 49 docks on 27 different islands in the Far East. The Philippines has built 9 docks, but neither country has implemented any kind of construction as China has done. The Philippines has just taken a big step to prevent China from trying to occupy any more coral reefs or islands in the region. Estimated $3.37 billion in global trade value goes through the South China Sea each year, equivalent to one-third of global trade in the world. According to Bromlium, which is based in the UK, nearly 40% of China's trade and about 80% of its imports go through the South China Sea. About 30% of global transport and about half of the world's fishing vessels go through the South China Sea. Nearly 14% of US maritime trade goes through this region. If this trade channel is blocked, it will cause chaos in the US as well as elsewhere. South China Sea countries have the right to catch fish in the South China Sea as well as explore natural resources, including crude oil and natural gas. The oil price is about $11 billion and 190 billion cubic feet, which is equivalent to more than 5,300 cubic meters of natural gas. Therefore, if a war breaks out, whoever controls this region will bring them an unparalleled advantage. The US is on the side of whoever in the maritime disputes here is really important. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has invalidated China's nine-stage list of trade routes. In 2016, an international court ruled that China violated international law when building artificial islands in the South China Sea. Back to the real stone. Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan both claim sovereignty over this place, but China itself built it. Countries cannot do much to prevent China. The construction process includes drilling sand, soil and rock with large-scale drilling vessels from nearby coral reefs. The material is taken to the factory, where they are poured down to build the foundation. This base is clamped and many heavy-duty machines will shape and level the site until there is a suitable terrain. When the foundation in the real stone was raised, Chinese workers poured concrete and built infrastructure as well as buildings. The infrastructure includes railways, aircraft carriers, communication infrastructure, radar stations, accommodation facilities, port facilities and administrative buildings. The island is protected by coastal defense structures. In such a desolate place, sea-level rise is something that happens every day. Creating small pieces of land on the sea and hoping they will stand firm is quite ambitious, even a bit reckless. Not to mention it is very expensive. Maintaining it also involves extremely large costs. No one knows exactly how much money China has spent on the real stone. It is estimated to be about $12 billion. In 2014, 200 Chinese soldiers camped on the real stone. In 2016, after building a 3,125-meter-long runway, China began to deploy civilian and military aircraft on the island. Later, it was reported that air defense weapons as well as missile defense systems appeared on the real stone. In addition, there is also an early warning radar station. This information was revealed after China announced that it had no intention to militarize the real stone. The US side has soon issued a statement calling on the bookmakers to publicly pledge to stop land reconstruction, build new facilities and militarize the disputed entities. China's man-made islands are immediately referred to as the San Francisco Sands. While most of the world describes these islands as similar to fixed aircraft carriers and sea cannons, China continues to hide the fact that they are just military bases. China may not want to join the war with the US and its allies, but China will want to occupy the most important strategic areas in the world. While on the surface, China does not recognize that. They say they only improve the living and working conditions of the people on these islands. Or these islands are used to support fishing, weather forecasting, provide hiding places or help shipwrecks pass. Not only do man-made islands look like military bases, but many other islands also look like them. For example, Gaven, where Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines also claim sovereignty. Gaven has a very small area, but now it is a place to place air defense guns and missile defense systems. Therefore, it is not really friendly to the people. Next is Van Khanh, a much larger project in the eastern part of the Changsha Islands. It is located 217 km from the coast of the Philippines' Palawan Island. When China first began to bring heavy machinery to Van Khanh, some countries asked China what it was doing there. When the Philippines asked China what it was doing in Van Khanh, China said it was a hiding place for the people. Now it looks very much like a military base. The Asia-Pacific Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies has released satellite images showing large air defense guns and possibly close-range weapons systems on this coral reef. China has also built a 2,644-meter-long runway on the island. At least China has admitted this when it said the weapons were placed there for maritime freedom. The Philippines has stated that there is one thing and only one thing, that a conflict may occur. Then an international court ruled that these coral reefs and the other nearby corals are barrages when the tide is low, which does not create an ocean, an economic zone, or territorial waters, and are not able to be captured, captured, or captured in any other way. In short, these corals are not a place to build a military base. And because they are not considered a real territory of a country, the United States does not need to do what is called going through harmlessly, because according to international law, there is no island to talk about. China's invasion through a series of satellite images has been recorded for many years. China has turned almost nothing into a entity. A similar story happened with the Sube rock, which used to be a coral reef, and is now a land developed with a military base, port, and a runway about 3,000 meters long. Some of these islands are places to place laser equipment and jammers. Fighter jets can land there. There is nothing at all about the islands that are dubbed the hiding places of the people. Previously, when the US Navy's reconnaissance aircraft flew through this area, they were warned that they had lost contact with China's airspace. In a specific case, when warned, the US pilot replied that the US Navy aircraft has the sovereign right to carry out legitimate military operations outside the national airspace of any coastal country. The implementation of these rights is guaranteed by international law, and the aircraft is operating with the appropriate respect for the rights and obligations of all countries. It is in these missions that the US aircraft has seen that these islands are not just places where people can set foot, even for a few hours. Images show that the ports can accommodate at least 40 military ships. They show roads that are big enough for bombers, enough weapons to turn a dispute into something worse. This threatens all the countries in the area, as well as all areas of the sea and international airspace. That is why the US conducts missions through the area that the US calls the Free Operation Mission, FONOP. Through this, the US shows its resistance to excessive maritime claims. China does not support FONOP. In recent years, Japan, Britain, Australia and France have all launched FONOP. China often quotes words such as climbing, provocation, to describe these activities. Critics of China's expansion in the South China Sea have said that the climbing began when China built the islands. A total of 7 areas of land were excavated, with a total area of about 13.5 square kilometers. It sounds like not much, but there are a lot of weapons and railroads there. In addition, to bring these giant concrete blocks down to the sea, China destroyed the ecosystem there. Only at the 9-kilometer-long Wankhan Rock, China has buried the original natural coral under millions of tons of sand and rubble. For all the islands, millions of tons of sand and coral have been dug up and dumped. When China began to build these artificial islands, those who did not care too much about military strategy and war warned that it was very likely that the artificial islands would be swept back to the sea. In short, this is very harmful to the life of animals and marine plants. Oil, chemicals and all kinds of fertilizers can form clouds of substances that the sea does not need. In addition, Taiwan has accused China of eating their sand, so Taiwan has increased its efforts to clear the sea. In 2020, the Taiwan military seized 4,000 sand-dredging and sand transportation ships of China, increasing the number by 560% compared to 2019. They said that these activities are destroying not only the local ecosystem, but also the Internet under the sea. China has created islands on the sea that, according to international law, do not exist there. They are built on unstable soil, can be swept away and swept away. China may be a technological powerhouse, but nature always has a way to say, be careful. Reports said that on some islands, concrete is falling, which means that the soil of these islands can be eroded, and what is above them can be collapsed. The problem could be much worse if a big storm hits. In addition, construction activities can easily move their soils. Natural erosion can also cause collapse for these islands. There is also another natural process called tidal fluctuation. This means that the material placed can become smaller and when that happens, all the islands can move down and sink. These islands are in the middle zone, so global warming is also a threat. According to some reports, the global average sea level has increased at an average rate of about 1.8 to 3.6 mm per year. But global warming can speed up this. If the sea level is high, it can swallow these islands. In fact, in the next few decades, some of China's artificial islands may be completely submerged. These islands may be sinking, and if so, they will become a huge waste of money. But even if they don't sink, people don't have to ask what their role is in the war. If the war breaks out, the US may attack three main islands with ballistic missiles, use electronic warfare technology to break through the air defense system, and neutralize these islands with cruise missiles. The US can also blockade and starve food, weapons and other items for these islands. Some analysts believe that it will take 30 to 50 cruise missiles for each largest warhead. The main islands may contain a few fighter jets, possibly 24 for each island, or even one or two bombers, but in a war zone, the target will be much easier to be attacked. That's why a military analyst asked, are they military assets or legal responsibility to Beijing? Can China save their islands from being sunk before that happens? It seems that China is ready to spend money on a world's largest submarine, 50% stronger than the so-called super-submarine used before. In March, China built a double-hulled cargo ship in the South China Sea, with a record 10,000 kilowatts. The old ship, the Tianjin, had a capacity of 4,400 kilowatts. Then China added the Tiankon, which had a capacity of 6,600 kilowatts, into service in 2019, and is now Asia's strongest submarine. It is known that China's submarine fleet has more than 200. So it seems that China is ready to carry out more submarine operations. That's why the Philippines believes that China can move to other islands in the region, explaining why after 30 years, the Philippines reopened to receive US military presence. Thank you for watching See you in the next video