Do you think that it is possible that in the last 400 years that the strategy might change in how to deal with piracy?
Re:Guam: The America That Americans Forget
by lucasban on Thursday July 13, 2023 @08:49PM
(#36718097)
I hardly think the situation a few hundred years ago is relevant to their ability to secure their modern shipping lines
Re:Guam: The America That Americans Forget
by thaumasiotes on Saturday July 15, 2023 @02:05AM
(#36734046)
They had the ability then. It just wasn't something they were interested in doing.
>history's not on your side for that one
Except that's history. Reality today is not on your side. PRC has more ship building capacity than rest of world combined. Annual production of dead weight tons per year is about 6x-8x more than output US emergency ship building program during WW2. Not to mention most new PRC surface combatants do anti piracy tours out to Africa. If PRC/PLAN wanted to take over piracy protection for her SLOCs, they can basically do so already, plenty of small hulls being retired to coast guard that even they have enough capacity to do it.
History's not on your side for that one. You're talking about the country that, plagued by pirates disturbing its coastal shipping, went to massive expense to construct an enormous system of inland canals running parallel to the coast that the pirates couldn't reach.
If Chinese merchants wanted the sea kept clear, say because they wanted to trade with nearby islands, they had do that in their own private capacity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga