It looks like the dictator/autocratic states in Asia (Russia/China) with its economy collapsing, is resorting to territorial aggression against neighboring countries in order to get resources and get people to look away from its collapse. China exports fall 11.2% in January, imports down 18.8% <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/14/china-releases-trade-data-for-january-yuan-denominated-and-us-dollar-imports-and-exports.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/14/china-releases-trade-data-for...</a>. Russia's ruble collapses to lowest level, with "Inflation reached 12.5% in 2015 while real wages kept dropping, leaving many people much worse off." ever<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/20/investing/russia-ruble-record-low/" rel="nofollow">http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/20/investing/russia-ruble-recor...</a><p>With Russia bumping against all of Europe, and China bumping against Japan/Korea/Taiwan/Vietnam/Malaysia/Indonesia/Phillipines, this is going to be bad for world stability.
BBC has before-and-after satellite photos: <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35592988" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35592988</a>
In case anyone did't get the "disputed" part, Vietnam occupies most of South China Sea islands especially in the 70s and 80s around Sino-Vietnam war. China (actually Republic of China) claimed them earliest but didn't occupy.
Ron Paul's take on this from few month ago<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KudfRyn3ZbA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KudfRyn3ZbA</a><p>interesting to watch it now, where will this lead to, and what is the strategic goal here?
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.<p>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.
Russia and China are quite different and in different situations. China benifits hugely by the drop in commodity prices and Russia does the opposite.<p>It is also much easier to understand the strategic goals of China:<p>This "dispute" will eventually amount to nothing; it is mere posturing showing the Americans that any military action will be too costly.<p>In a couple of decades; Taiwan will join China in a manner similar to what happened to Hong Kong and Macau. This will happen when the wealth of the average mainland Chinese is compareable to that of the average Taiwanese and China will be Taiwan's absolutely dominant trading partner.<p>When this happens China will for purposes have broken American control of the South China sea.
It's kind of funny that China is getting the only attention, when all countries around are occupying the islands: <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Spratly_Is_since_NalGeoMaps.png" rel="nofollow">https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Spratly_...</a>