In the past year, the four US aircraft carrier battle groups have entered and exited the South China Sea 10 times, and the four aircraft carrier battle groups have rotated around China, which is the largest force that the US Navy can invest in the Western Pacific region. When we analyze the trajectory of the US aircraft carrier battle group's activities in and out of the South China Sea, we can clearly see what kind of medicine the United States is selling in the South China Sea gourd.
To sum up, there are several obvious features:
First, the aircraft carrier battle group has been maintained in the Philippine Sea for a long time, and the South China Sea has only maintained a forward presence. There are two main reasons why the US aircraft carrier battle group has remained in the Philippine Sea for a long time, one is that the Philippine Sea is relatively far away from the anti-access firepower of the People's Liberation Army, which is relatively safe; the other is that the United States wants to practice how to better intervene in hot spot events, and the Philippine Sea is relatively close to the Japanese archipelago and Guam bases.
Second, multi-route access to the South China Sea, with a particular focus on the use of the middle waters of the southern Philippine Archipelago. The reason why the Bashi Strait is well known to women and children is that it is relatively close to us, and second, the US military and our army have more activities near the Bashi Strait. But last year, new strait terms such as San Bernardino, Mindoro, and Barabac began to enter people's field of vision, the core reason is that the US aircraft carriers entering and leaving the South China Sea more often choose these straits around the Philippine islands.
Third, there have been obvious changes in the tactics of the US military in and out of the South China Sea. In addition to the above-mentioned multi-route in and out of the South China Sea, the activities of the US military in the South China Sea show obvious irregularities, fast-forward and fast-out kill-and-return carbines, and even relatively rare roundabout encirclement tactics. For example, from October 24 to November 7, the USS Carvinson aircraft carrier entered and exited the South China Sea twice, entering the Strait of Malacca, maneuvering eastward through the Balabak Strait into the Sulu Sea in the Spratly Islands, then returning to the South China Sea from the Mindoro Strait, and finally leaving the South China Sea from the Bashi Strait.
The above three more obvious characteristics all illustrate a problem: the atmosphere of the US Navy's activities in the South China Sea, especially the actual combat of the aircraft carrier battle group, is getting stronger and stronger, reaching the tactical action to the drill subject, and everywhere there is a strong atmosphere of actual combat.
Is this really the case? Since the US military is so blatantly making war preparations in the South China Sea, has the PLA not discovered it? Why in the past year, the PLA has behaved more professionally in responding to relevant exercises and provocations of the US military, and many people have shouted for many years that the Sino-US military conflict in the South China Sea has not yet occurred.
There is a very deep reason for this, in addition to the fact that on the surface China and the United States are preparing for the worst, but no one wants to put it into the essential psychology of war, what is more important is that many people ignore the role of the People's Liberation Army in the South China Sea. Looking at the dynamics of the South China Sea, we should not keep a close eye on the US military and forget the host of the People's Liberation Army.
In the past few years, the vast majority of people have known that China has completed the work of blowing and filling islands and reefs in the South China Sea, and the US military has also released satellite pictures of China's islands and reefs after blowing and filling for a period of time. From the commercial satellite images released by the US military, we can see that the area of these blown-in islands and reefs has increased exponentially, and runways and related military facilities have been built to meet the take-off of bombers, and China has repurgeded the defense system in the South China Sea.
The most eye-catching thing should be the Triangular Arrangement of Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands, this isosceles triangle layout of the base group, after the completion of the deployment of naval and air forces, the combat radius of the Island Shanghai Air Force fighters cut off the entire South China Sea from the middle of the waist, not only the surrounding Mindoro Strait, Barabac Strait, the Passage from the South China Sea to the South Pacific, within the combat radius of Chinese fighters, even the Strait of Malacca also entered the combat radius of Chinese long-range bombers for the first time, this significance is unprecedented.
Since then, the Spratly Islands have been turned into stepping stones for China's initiative in the South China Sea, both as an outpost into the Indian Ocean and as a central point for China to control the South China Sea shipping lanes. This is just like the United States took the Parama Canal that year, which completely opened up the key passage for China to go to the ocean, and opened a good start for us to carry out other strategic layouts in the future.
We have not only blown and filled in the Nansha, but also carried out related work in the Paracels, and Woody Island is the most representative of them. If we connect Woody Island and Huangyan Island in the Paracels with Subi Reef in the Nansha to form a new triangle, then we will truly complete the defense system connection from Hainan Island to the Paracel Islands to the Nansha Qundao, and the north of the Nansha Islands will be under China's control.
One of the important reasons why we don't blow up Scarborough Shoal now is that we don't want to irritate the Philippines. The United States obviously does not want China to complete the filling of Huangyan Dao, so the activities of the US aircraft carrier battle group in the waters near Huangyan Dao are a strong evidence. As long as China no longer carries out blow-fill operations on Huangyan Island, there will be a gap in the export of the eastern South China Sea, and the United States will still have a foothold. The unique strategic role doomed Huangyan Dao to become a key area of U.S. military activities.
We return to the perspective of the United States, the PLA in the South China Sea has achieved a series of results, resulting in only one result, that is, the United States has lost control of the South China Sea, the United States is very clear, if China achieves national reunification, then the current United States in the South China Sea to the West Pacific region of the existing advantages will no longer exist, because the Important Bashi Strait for the United States absolutely can not be preserved, while the United States in the Philippine Sea and Japan's southwest direction of the operation will face the PLA.
Therefore, if the United States wants to ensure absolute control of the South China Sea, it must take the South China Sea, otherwise the so-called control of the US military in the South China Sea will exist in name only, and no matter how many actions there are, they will have no practical effect. This can also be understood why, despite the many things that the United States has done in the South China Sea last year, while everything is calm, the PLA's response has become more professional.
The Taiwan issue is a landmine, and the United States knows very well who touches it and who suffers, so it is sooner or later that China realizes national reunification, and all the United States can do is to delay this process as much as possible. Once Taiwan is lost, an unsinkable aircraft carrier, it will naturally not be as easy as it is now for the United States to contend for the South China Sea, so the US military has intensified its activities in the South China Sea, especially in the waters of the Spratly Islands.
This series of signs fully shows that Nansha is becoming a core area of the Sino-US south China Sea contest, if the United States cannot take the South China Sea, then today it will only lose control of the South China Sea, and the United States will lose the entire South China Sea in the future.
The United States is now gathering aircraft carriers, bombers and other mass killers in the Spratly region to conduct joint exercises between aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, joint exercises between aircraft carriers and bombers, and some exercises in tactics such as unmanned aerial vehicles attacking islands and anti-submarine warfare, which seem to be preparing for war, but in fact what the United States has to do is more like seeking a new shipping route into the South China Sea in advance, a waterway controlled by the United States.
The sea passage in the southern part of the Two Philippine Archipelagos, the Mindoro Strait and the Barabac Strait, has become the focus, after all, although there are bases of the People's Liberation Army here, from the perspective of strength, the conventional strength advantage of the US military is greater, the United States may not be able to take these three bases, and the PLA may not necessarily cut off this line route of the United States.
Even if China actually controls the Bashi Strait, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier can also enter the South China Sea from the southern waters of the Philippine Archipelago outside the Chinese long-range fire strike envelope, ensuring the smooth passage of the South China Sea to the western Pacific and the South Pacific.