[awl130]

china will get its way. imagine china building a military base on cuba or hispaniola and see how well that sits with the us government, un commission be damned. as china grows it wants to secure it's geographical sphere of influence, and all the western powers in the world will not win this battle. china has much more to lose and win.

protestations by the phillipines and other smaller outlying nations are again, the same as cuba or puerto rico or haiti protesting against guantanamo bay. the bottom line is that the dominant regional power dictates the terms and the smaller guys follow. if i were a western power i would spend just a modicum of effort pushing back against china but concurrently prepare to lose this battle.

[xiaoma]

It's more likely that China will end up starting WWIII. They are claiming not only international space but also that of their neighbors.