China Matters: Debunking America's Scarborough Shoal Dolchstoss Meme

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Whoever is rolling out the new US maritime strategy for East Asia apparently regards the Financial Times as his or her chosen instrument. The FT, for its part, appears to believe that it completes its journalistic mission by reporting the US position, and sees no need to examine the US claims in detail, a shortcoming I intend to remedy in this piece.

In recent days two backgrounded FT articles have expressed US frustration with Chinese salami-slicing and cabbage wrapping in the South China Sea. From the first piece, Pentagon plans new tactics to deter China in South China Sea:

In recent months, the US has come to two broad conclusions about its approach to the South China Sea. The first is that its efforts at deterrence are having only limited impact. Despite considerable US attention and rhetoric since 2010, China has slowly continued to shift the status quo in ways that are rattling both many of its neighbours and the US.

The second is that US military strategy in the region has to some extent been asking the wrong question. For several years, some of the Pentagon’s best minds have been focused on how the US would win a protracted war with China and have come up with a new concept – known as AirSea Battle – to ensure continued access of US aircraft and ships to contested areas during a conflict.

However, the reality is that Washington is facing a very different military challenge, a creeping assertion of control by the Chinese that often involves civilian rather than naval vessels – the sort of grey area that would not normally warrant any response from the US.

http://chinamatters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/debunking-americas-scarborough-shoal.html