To understand the ridiculousness of Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, consider what happened on Friday, after a U.S. destroyer, the U.S.S. Mustin, sailed past the Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands chain.

The reef is indicated by the red-identification point on the map below and is approximately 700 miles from the nearest actual bit of Chinese territory; Hainan Island.





Still, China responded to the USS Mustin's passage with the following warning.

"By repeatedly sending military ships into these areas without authorization, the US has seriously harmed Chinese sovereignty and security, violated basic rules of international relations, and harmed regional peace and stability."

"Sovereignty", "basic rules", "harmed regional peace."

This is international relations language to be sure, but it's also absurd. As I say, just look at the map!

Not only is it 700 miles from China to the reef, but the reef is far closer to the Philippines.

Of course, the Chinese know their claims are ludicrous, but they don't care. They're gambling that if they wave enough red flags and threaten enough retaliatory actions, the U.S. will back down and cease its freedom-of-navigation patrols. They want to militarize the South China Sea so that shipping must defer to Chinese rules of transit.





In turn, the Chinese know that they can push around smaller nations like Vietnam and the Philippines and even South Korea and Japan by threatening their trade relationships. And as Vietnam's decision to scrap an energy project proves, China's imperialism is already having success.

Unfortunately for Beijing, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis appears to be in charge of U.S. strategy.