Maybe a surprise attack on Japan using 'tourists' over a certain age is a mitigation against healthcare and support of the elderly...

They will die quickly enough... from air pollution.

They pickle in old age quite well.

There is a tomb near Wuhan of a fairly well off Chinese man who died about a thousand years ago. The tomb, a small wooden cabin, had leaked silt that had preserved his body to an amazing degree. He was still complete, externally, internally and still flexible.

The carried an autopsy and found the cause of death was a stomach problem. His lungs, despite being covered with lamp black were in good condition and did not contribute to his death.

The old ones have spent half their life in small, unventilated sheds with a coal or wood fire keeping them warm.

Pollution? Child's play.

Land grab limits?
 

Is there an internationally-accepted legal limit to the amount of land a country can 'make' by dredging/landfill?
Numerous countries with a shoreline do it but surely there must be a limit?
If you decide to dump a load of hardcore in the sea and make an island, which legal entity permits you to claim it - despite it being in international waters?
eg. What is to stop Singapore or Hong Kong from filling in more areas of their coastal waters?
If it is still with-in your original territorial maritime limits, then are those limits extended further to cater for the 'new' land - thereby reducing 'International' waters.
I guess if you are a big enough entity then you can do what you like, especially if your actions are tolerated/ignored by trading partners.
It is one thing to argue about perceived historical rights of once deserted islands but to make an island in the middle of nowhere for the purpose of extending your power base and aspirations can only lead to strife and does not bode well.
Cherry-picking only the convenient international conventions is a practice performed by countries if they are allowed.
After all, who is going to front-up to this particular bully?
Trump that.....

I don't think there are any limits on what you do in your own territorial waters

"International " waters a bit of a mis-nomer or a red herring as you have the right to free pasage through almost any waters - even territorial waters

The problem with dredging is where do you get the sand from? Malaysia and Indonesia complain that Singapore are getting their sand from their areas

You can extend your economc zone that way but its an expensive way of doing it... and you can keep doing it until you run into someone elses at which point you have to agree.

Look at the N Sea - the Dutch and the Danes originally came to an agreement that stitched up the Germans but it was changed later when germany woke up........

Legally a reef in international waters remains a reef in international waters even after you start to fill it up and claim it is an island now and your territory. This is what USS Stennis will prove soon. Enroute from Hawaii.

Less hair is correct - building an airstrip on a reef deosn't make it legally an island that you own - but the Chinese beg to differ......

EESDL - Land grab limits ?

The Unclos Arbitral Award dated 12 July 2016 explains it all – in 501 pages. Simple it ain’t, but it’s all in there, in very specific detail.

https://pca-cpa.org/wp-content/uploa...0712-Award.pdf

The side that won accepted the verdict in full and also paid the costs of the side that lost, but seems to want to negotiate away their righteous position.

The side that lost didn’t bother to turn up, said ‘get stuffed’ to the verdict, and if anything has increased construction activities including, as we know, some serious militarisation, in the name of peace and humanitarian brotherly love, that (until they did it) they earnestly assured everyone they wouldn’t do.

I liked the planning application for their development of Scarborough that appeared a year ago. I'll see if I can find the pic again. Could have been a spoof though.

LFH

....................

The Scarborough Development Plan is on this brief thread here

http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...-strategy.html

HH Mostly by using numerous ginormous ‘cutter-dredgers’ which grind out the local coral to a water depth of 30 metres and pump it ashore thru’ floating pipes, to where you want it put. ..... but only after you've let your fisher militia dredge up all the valuable giant clamshells to turn into tourist trinkets.

Additionally by using numerous large ro-ro barges to shuttle-ship in large quantities of rock (limestone ?) cut from mainland quarries such as the Tielugang Quarry 5 clicks over the hill NE from the newish Dalian Navy Base on Hainan Island. It’s actually the only suitable quarry I can find on the whole PRC coastline. You can see them loading on GE with several waiting offshore. Try cycling the timeline.

LFH

............

China says it will fine US ships that don't comply with its new rules in South China Sea

Guess they'll be taking donations from the crew.

Thanks Flash - I was looking for that but couldn't remember the UN acronym.....

Ah! the famous Scarbourgh Development Plan - I wondered why there were so many Chinese restaurants there!

Self-propelled donations?

https://www.japantoday.com/category/...nas-activities

TOKYO —
Japan’s Defense Ministry has doubled the number of fighter jets scrambled in each response to foreign airplanes approaching its airspace on the back of China’s intensifying military activities around the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, government sources say.

Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force began scrambling four fighter jets since last year in each case of potential airspace violation by foreign aircraft, they said. The ASDF previously sent two jets in each scramble since it began such missions in 1958.

The number of scrambles by Japan and China has been surging in areas near the Japan-controlled, China-claimed Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture where the two countries’ air defense identification zones overlap. The two countries have yet to establish a communication mechanism to avoid any accidental aerial or maritime clash.

Between April last year and January, the number of scrambles Japan engaged in already eclipsed the annual record of 944 in fiscal 1984 when Soviet airplanes were active in the Cold War period. According to the sources, an increasing number of Chinese aircraft have been flying past the northern latitude of 27 degrees, which Japan sees as a defense line to keep Chinese planes out of the area between the latitude 25 and 26 degrees north where the Senkakus are located.

Of the four F-15 jets scrambled each time, two in the rear will be on alert to deal with approaches of additional aircraft. The ASDF has also extended the duration of a mission called combat air patrol and begun sending more E-2C early warning aircraft and a surveillance plane known as airborne early warning and control system, or AWACS, during a scramble.

In January last year, the Defense Ministry doubled the number of F-15s stationed at its base in Naha, Okinawa, to about 40, but more frequent scrambles and the increased number of fighter jets flown in each mission led to a shortage of jets on standby. To more flexibly operate aircraft, the air defense command in Tokyo has started controlling fighter jets across different regions, reviewing such rules as the minimum number of aircraft needed for standby at each composite air division.

The most dramatic impact of ocean sand mining is surely felt in Indonesia, where sand miners have completely erased at least two dozen islands since 2005. The stuff of those islands mostly ended up in Singapore, which needs titanic amounts to continue its programme of artificially adding territory by reclaiming land from the sea. The city-state has created an extra 20 square miles in the past 40 years and is still adding more, making it by far the world’s largest sand importer. The demand has denuded beaches and river beds in neighbouring countries to such an extent that Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam have all restricted or banned the export of sand to Singapore.

More at
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...is-never-heard

Hmmm, Territory grabs, maybe the cause of most war!:uhoh:

OAP

There seems to be too much focus on the NK embryonic nuclear capability. They have mastered ballistic missiles and recently demonstrated their VX capability. VX is incredibly difficult to make, but very easy to weaponise. They appear to have all they need to achieve mass destruction in Japan and other potential targets.

Worrying times.

JTO,

Indeed, you are right about "shifting the focus". Though this NK ugly shorty would unlikely threaten the US territory, Japan and South Korea are under threat.

But is it really difficult to make VX on a country level? I am not an expert in chemistry, but using a common sense: it was developed in mid 50's in UK by the guys working for agriculture to fight weeds :-) No serious MoD investment, no huge plants in their possession. There was even an open GB patent with all the formulas, reaction chain description, etc. Might be impossible to make for jihadists hiding in the holes, but not for a militarized economy of the 25 mln country.

IMHO, helas, it is only China that can change all that (the NK regime), in a "couple of clicks". But they obviously do not want to: no need for them to scare their long-term rival (Japan) themselves. Let Kim do that.

I think China has a number of reservations about regime -change

1. They are not sure it can be done peaceably and they don't want a couple of million refugees flooding in

2. They sure as hell don't want a united (western) Korea across the border

3. They have strong prejudice about people interfering in other people's countrries

US to deploy missile-capable drones across border from North Korea
 

Article in the Guardian

I don't know much about NK but the Guardian comments pages sure are filled with loony tunes who just hate the US with a capital H. NK ? All the US's fault, NK threaten all their neighbors? The US's fault. In fact everything anywhere in the world is apparently the fault of the US. Have they always been like this ? Really odd people.

Some piccies of the PLAAF.

http://http://news.xinhuanet.com/eng..._135926878.htm

Don't waste time, do they?

Warning that Beijing's military bases in South China Sea are ready for use

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...hina-sea-ready

Chinese patrol ships keep presence around Malaysian reefs
 

Article in today's Guardian:-
Extract - Something else to be discussed at Mar-a-Lago...

Well it makes sense to put your AEW assets closer to where they might be needed I'd have thought............

I'd say "the west" should react by, step by step, putting own assets into the area as well. P-8, base agreements, naval patrols, new permanent stuff. Make them pay a price for any tiny bit. They move - we move. THAAD was quite right.

Trouble is not everyone in the area is that keen on risking a fight with China. the West (ok the USA) has to have agreements and treaties in place to build a permanent presence. The locals will want cast-iron guarantees that we'll back them if it all goes pear-shaped

Who's the we in "we'll"?

well of course I mean the generic "we" as the free thinking liberal people of the West...

But if it comes to Military action it actually means YOU as in the YOUSA - and maybe with whoever's arms you can twist on any specific issue...........

The rest of us will back them but only as far as a UN Resolution - God forbid military action - which is why the SE Asians are a bit worried about upsetting China

So US wouldn't be that concerned if Cuba and China got friendly and China started moving missiles etc in ?

Some people want to go looking for a War all the time.

China hasn't attacked anybody yet everybody seemingly want to surround them with missiles and then claim it is China being belligerent.

This Free thinking liberal bit I struggle with ................................... I believe in Dmocracy and Capitalism but struggle to find much of that in the west.

People with the most money can buy the Government they want in the west and then use that Govt in pursuit of their own goals.

Just exactly what is the purpose of the West ?

Millions of people living in poverty, no income yet "the leaders" instead of looking after their own population are rushing to start a war somewhere else.

It then becomes a rinse and repeat continuously even though it doesn't work.

http://http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/19/us-blasts-china-unprofessional-intercept-military-plane-fighter/ Looks like someone's been watching Top Gun again...or they wanted pics of antennas on the top?

Chinese 'coastguard' ships flying drones over the Senkaku Islands?


https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170519_17/


Japan's Defense Minister Tomomi Inada has revealed that Self-Defense Force aircraft were scrambled when a drone was spotted near a Chinese ship in Japanese waters.

Inada told reporters on Friday that 2 F-15 fighters and an AWACS surveillance plane were dispatched after the sighting by the Coast Guard the previous day.

The drone was flying near one of 4 Chinese patrol ships that entered Japan's territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

Inada said the drone was operated by Chinese vessels that intruded into Japanese waters and this was a serious infringement of Japan's sovereignty.

The Foreign Ministry lodged a protest with China on Thursday, saying the conduct could escalate tensions.

Japan controls the islands. The Japanese government maintains the islands are an inherent part of Japan's territory. China and Taiwan claim them.

Al Jazeera news are reporting that a USAF surveillance aircraft has been buzzed within fifty metres, by a couple of Chinese interceptors.
A note for Top Gun fans....for a period, one interceptor flew inverted over the top of the USAF plane.

Next generation SOSUS?

China builds huge underwater spy network in disputed seas

Beijing is building a vast £230 million underwater spying network across the sea bed of disputed territory in the East China Sea and South China Sea raising fears that President Xi is plotting to seize new land and expand his military presence.

China will create a huge surveillance hub with underwater cameras, sensors and radars that will feed information back to Shanghai. It is suspected that Beijing will use the information to monitor shipping traffic and scrutinise any attempts by its neighbours who dispute China’s territorial claims in the region to grab back land. Beijing has said that the spying hub will give “round-the-clock, real-time, high-definition, multiple interface, and three-dimensional observations”.

While the ruling party initially said that the hub would advance oceanic studies, CCTV, the state-owned broadcaster, later said that it would also “meet the needs in other areas such as national defence and disaster warning.”......

The new underwater development is expected to take five years to complete. Jian Zhimin, dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science at Tongji University in Shanghai, said: “Devices will be placed down on the sea bed through optical cables; in other words we’ll build a laboratory undersea to collect and send data back to us.” He added: “China is an ocean power . . . An ocean power must be able to go to the high seas and go global.”

Zhou Huaiyang, a professor at Tongji University, said he too believed that the underwater initiative could be used to endorse China’s territorial claims. “After its establishment, this system can also have some effects in other sectors, such as mining, mapping or ocean rights protection and national defence in addition to scientific research,” he said......