Meanwhile back at the South China Sea.

The US is paranoid about the South China Sea and has set aside billions for Taiwan and the waters around the island.

The US held a meeting and made a new pact…..

The US has been working to increase military cooperation with the Philippines, Japan, and Australia as part of its strategy against China in the Asia Pacific, a grouping Pentagon officials privately call the “Squad,” Bloomberg reported on Friday.

The defense chiefs of the US, the Philippines, Japan, and Australia met in Hawaii on May 2 and issued a joint readout that used harsh rhetoric against China’s claims to the South China Sea and the East China Sea, two areas where the US has vowed to intervene if the maritime disputes turn into shooting wars.

“The Ministers and Secretaries expressed serious concern about the situation in the East and South China Seas,” the readout said. “They strongly objected to the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels in the South China Sea. They reiterated serious concern over the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) repeated obstruction of Philippine vessels’ exercise of high seas freedom of navigation and the disruption of supply lines to Second Thomas Shoal, which constitute dangerous and destabilizing conduct.”

They also vowed to increase military cooperation, including in the South China Sea. “The Ministers and Secretaries discussed opportunities to further advance defense cooperation, including through continued maritime cooperation in the South China Sea, enhanced procedures to enable coordination and information sharing arrangements, as well as strengthening capacity building,” the readout said.

(antiwar.com)

The US has repeatedly vowed that the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty applies to attacks on Philippine vessels in the South China Sea. Similarly, the US has affirmed that the mutual defense portion of the US-Japan Security Treaty would apply to the Senkaku Islands, Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that are also claimed by China.

I have to ask….does that Mutual Defense thing about Filipino vessels extend to derelicts?

I ask that simple question because of something I read……

Earlier this month, President Biden asserted that US support for the Philippines is “ironclad.” A new story in the Washington Post explains how that promise might be tested in the not-too-distant future thanks to a rusting warship.

• The ship: The BRP Sierra Madre belongs to the Philippines, which deliberately ran it aground on the Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 in order to stake its claim to an outpost in the disputed South China Sea. The ship is no longer seaworthy, but Philippine military vessels routinely bring supplies out to the Filipino marines aboard.
• ‘Asia’s next war’: Chinese military ships harass the Filipino supply ships with water cannons, and it’s a dangerous tactic, as videos show. If things escalate, or a Philippine service member is killed, that could trigger a US response under a 1951 mutual defense treaty, per the Post. The story describes the ship as a flashpoint that could lead to “Asia’s next war.”
• Days numbered: The ship is destined to succumb to the elements, and it could be a matter of months, not years, according to an analysis in the Guardian. China accuses the Philippines of trying to rehab the ship to make it a permanent fixture on the atoll, which the Philippines denies. China maintains an outpost on the nearby Mischief Reef, and would likely try to claim Second Thomas Shoal as part of its ever-expanding dominance of the sea.
• One proposal: The Philippines and the US should act before the ship disintegrates, writes Blake Herzinger at War on the Rocks. “The Philippines should remove the Sierra Madre and replace it with a permanent structure manned by combined rotational forces from both the Philippines and the U.S. Marine Corps,” he writes. “Such a forward operating base would be a powerful signal of commitment to the alliance for both nations.”

Cool!  We could actually go to war over some piece of junk stranded on an atoll because some country wants to clai8m it as theirs….is that about right?

This is just sick!  Nay it is DISGUSTING!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”