Hi folks, here's the latest I've found:

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/world/asiapacific/2016/03/21/china--indonesia-in-south-china-sea-row.html

and

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/south-china-sea-dispute-us-troops-to-return-to-philippines/news-story/b1d4c3b17cd17b9669523fa887bde2bd

Thanks Mr. Opinion,

We all need to be concerned about this aggression.

'Aggression', Jules ? Against Indonesian ships in Indonesian waters around Natuna ? What else would you call it ?

Joe

Hi Loudmouth,

It's fascinating stuff that's going on in the South China Sea. China is annexing most of the South China Sea right down towards Indonesia because it wants the oil and gas. This piece of the world looks like it might turn out to be another major fiasco over who should control the major undersea oil and gas reserves in SE Asia.

China is determined to annex the South China Sea and I don't think they are going to budge. Question is: Is China also looking at annexing the Northwest Shelf undersea oil and gas reserves off the coast of Western Australia? The Chinese believe that Australia was explored by Chinese before the Europeans and hence China has a claim to the ownership of northern Australia.

Yep, the Prison Republic is committing the offence that the Yanks are committing over a huge swathe of the world every day and the Indos are committing every hour against our neighbour West Papua. Where should Australia stand, and what actions should we pursue, to be consistent and not a mere Deppity Dawg with an endless clamour by a noisy pressure group to go to war against the relative minnow which still far, far outguns us?

Hi Jules,

'Deppity Dawg' - geddit ? Again and again ? Yuk, yuk. Yes, a long time ago.

Oppose aggression wherever it occurs, Jules. Currently it's the Chinese against the Indonesians, Filipinos and Vietnamese who are being aggressive. Call it like it is.

Nobody's saying 'go to war': straw man, Jules. But each of those countries has the right to defend its territory, and Australia has the right, if not the moral duty, to assist them in protecting their waters.

Every country, including China, has the right to travel anywhere in the south China Sea, outside of other countries' economic exclusion zones. But since it's international waters, no country has the right to build up any of those shoals, most certainly not as military bases.

As for any Chinese claim on Australia, it should remember that there were probably Austronesian fishermen and traders - ironically often from what is now the Philippines - operating in what are now Chinese coastal waters south of Fukien thousands of years ago, long before the Chinese empire reached the sea two thousand years ago.

Of course, pig-ignorance and aggression are not strangers to each other.

Joe

"Oppose aggression wherever it occurs"

Yep, let's go to it. Oppose aggression against populated Iraq (still US-occupied), Yemen (drone attacks), Syria (massive aggression devastating populated areas in search of regime change), Afghanistan (war without end), sites of many US military bases throughout North Africa and the Middle East, Palestine, West Papua. Indeed to have the least credibility we need to apologise humbly to the world for our part in the rape of Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia (as Deppity Dawg - live with it).

All that's opposing aggression wherever it occurs.

And in that context oppose Chinese aggression against some uninhabited reefs and any aggression they may be contemplating against actual inhabited countries like the Philippines and Taiwan and Vietnam. and ongoing aggression against Tibet and East Turkestan.

How do we manifest all this opposing of aggression? We call it out wherever we see it. We task our Department of Foreign Affairs with making us known all around the world as a voice to which the Allies signed on at Nuremberg. This is a respectability we earned briefly during and just after the war, until the Libs threw it away by participating in British aggression against Malaya.

A pipe dream? Of course it's a pipe dream, not dreamt for a minute by the noisy claque that's blustering about something we can never manifest (opposing aggression wherever it occurs) and whose real agenda is blindingly obvious - try to egg the Yanks into a repeat of Vietnam by starting a war with China, with us yapping along at their heels.