Author: GIKorea

This is good news because clearly the Chinese are trying to create strategic bases in the South Pacific where they could target Australia and New Zealand from. If a contingency was to happen in the South China Sea the fact that these two U.S. allies could be quickly targeted could influence future defense decisions:

Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday lauded a legal decision in the Solomon Islands that prevents a Chinese company from leasing an entire island in the South Pacific nation.

“I want to applaud the decision of the Solomon Islands attorney general to invalidate the Chinese effort to lease the island of Tulagi for 75 years,” Esper said in a statement. “This is an important decision to reinforce sovereignty, transparency, and the rule of law.”

Details of the long-term lease between the Solomon Islands’ Central Province and the China Sam Enterprise Group were only recently made public. News of the deal followed soon after Solomon Island officials announced in September that the nation was switching its diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but but do not think that the Chinese are not going to stop trying to create strategic bases in the South Pacific to pressure New Zealand and Australia with.

This should come as no surprise the Okinawa governor is against any weapons that could be used to defend the island:

As the Pentagon hunts for sites to deploy missiles against a rising China, Okinawa’s governor is warning the U.S. to steer clear of the southern Japanese prefecture.

Governor Denny Tamaki said in an interview Friday that any U.S. attempt to base intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Okinawa would be firmly opposed by the local people. Tamaki, who was elected last year on a campaign to get the Marines’ Futenma air base out of the prefecture, argues the region already shoulders an unfair burden by hosting about half of the 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan.

“Intermediate-range ballistic missiles can be used to attack other countries, so deploying them would conflict with the constitution and lead to a further build-up of the U.S. bases,” Tamaki, 60, told Bloomberg News. “To have new military facilities would be absolutely unacceptable.”

Bloomberg

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see where the U.S. is able to put missiles to counter China.

Another major US-ROK exercise has been cancelled:

South Korea and the United States are expected to skip a combined wintertime air exercise just as they did last year to support ongoing diplomacy for the denuclearization of North Korea, sources said Sunday. 

Military authorities of the two countries “shared the understanding” on the postponement of the Vigilant Ace air exercise that usually takes place around December, a source said, adding that a final decision will be made when the two countries hold annual defense ministers talks later this month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but as I have been saying I think the intent of the cancellation of these exercises is to show the world community that the U.S. has been greatly reasonable in making concessions in order to work out a deal with the Kim regime. So if the Kim regime begins a cycle of major provocations again, the U.S. can make a strong case that they have tried all other measures with North Korea and can justify taking tougher actions that have not been tried yet.

This is an unfortunate accident:

 Rescue workers found three bodies believed to be among the seven missing people aboard a crashed chopper near the Dokdo islets in the East Sea on Saturday.

A helicopter belonging to the fire agency crashed Thursday night, a few minutes after it took off from Dokdo, with seven people on board, including an injured person from a fishing boat.

Rescue workers found three bodies and retrieved one of them as part of an underwater mission by a submarine rescue ship of South Korea’s Navy.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.