Consultant: China Building Islands to Stake Claim in Sea

The Chinese government's project to build a series of islands in the South China Sea means the nation is taking control of not just the sea, but its massive oil and gas reserves, Charles Faddis, president of Orion Strategic Services, LLC told Newsmax TV on Thursday, adding that the plan also gives China military advantages.

"The Chinese have staked out a claim saying that basically virtually all of the South China Sea belongs to them, which is historically unsupportable," Faddis told MidPoint host Ed Berliner.

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The United States has expressed "not particularly strongly" on numerous occasions that it does not agree with China's plans, but "they've effectively told us to mind our own business and continued," said Faddis.

The island-building plan is huge, said Faddis.

"They have these giant vacuum dredges out there sucking up the bottom of the ocean and spraying it up onto coral reefs and building islands all over the place in the South China Sea," he said.

The Chinese have no historical claim on the region, but they're still getting away with the plan, as the neighboring nations of Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, and the Philippines are all militarily inferior, Faddis pointed out.

"None of them want to get into a shooting war with the Chinese and we have done nothing of any effect to stop them," said Faddis. "In fact, ironically, we just invited the Chinese to participate in what's called RIMPAC, which is our largest annual naval exercise in the Pacific Ocean. While all of this is going on, we have Chinese ships operating with American ships in the Pacific Ocean, which you've got to imagine sends an interesting message."

And while Faddis said he doesn't know if the United States has not taken a strong stance because of its deep economic ties with China, "the fact that we have gotten ourselves into bed with them economically to the extent we have means that any major confrontation with them is going to have huge consequences."

The Chinese are not being subtle with their plan, said Faddis, which not only involves building islands.

"They have boarded other countries' ships, they have in the past fired on other countries ships," he said. "They have made very clear that if you don't get out of the way, you're going to get hurt."

In addition, Faddis said, the Chinese are already building military bases on some of their man-made islands including describing one as a "super aircraft carrier" on which it plans to put military aircraft and control the South China Sea.

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