That whole story kind of strikes me as propaganda with deliberately provided intel and probably even satellite images.
There is increasing necessity to condition Americans for what is seen as a coming confrontation with China. People need to start being worried and have concerns. I'm not placing any kind of judgement on whether that is good or bad, but it is happening and our government deems it necessary to "educate" the public and we all very well know that the NYT, along with many other mainstream news sources, are little more than government propaganda channels.
I wouldn't say it's about money. From the bottom it looks like it's all about money, because there is a huge money layer that blocks the view; but from the top, it becomes rather clear that it's not really about money at all when you have all the money you ever need. It's about power, control, and legacy; all far more elusive goals than simply money.
Not everything is an American conspiracy of some kind. These issue need to be addressed before a smaller country and China start to take shots at each other (I mean this literally and figuratively). Similar issues are happening in Ukraine with Russia annexing Crimeria.
What if China wants a piece of the Philippines or Vietnam? It needs to be addressed on an international stage before the civilians on both sides begin suffering.
I'm not saying you're wrong - it certainly needs to be addressed - but you make it sound like Russia and China are the only villains.
I think these issues need to be resolved without assessing blame, because the world's most powerful countries always try to impose their will on other smaller sovereign states.
I see what your are getting at and they are not the only villains (see US/Iraq conflict). The biggest difference between Russia's expansion and the US' conflicts is the US doesn't annex the countries we invade (in modern times at least).
Only mentioned Vietnam because it was discussed in the article. Besides US Troops arent fighting proxy wars with Russia at the moment. Just fighting "Terrorists", whatever that means at this time.
Of course, at the time China's economy and military where much smaller. But so was Vietnam's.
Out of China's neighbors that should be worried Vietnam is probably the least likely target since it's basically an armadillo. The rest, however, have plenty to fear.
And it is not only Vietnam that China should be worried about. They have heavily armed koreans and crazy japanese at their doorsteps. God knows what could really happen.
The problems in that area are nothing new, the local medias of each involved country have been talking about it for years, before the US began to take sides.
There is increasing necessity to condition Americans for what is seen as a coming confrontation with China. People need to start being worried and have concerns. I'm not placing any kind of judgement on whether that is good or bad, but it is happening and our government deems it necessary to "educate" the public and we all very well know that the NYT, along with many other mainstream news sources, are little more than government propaganda channels.
I wouldn't say it's about money. From the bottom it looks like it's all about money, because there is a huge money layer that blocks the view; but from the top, it becomes rather clear that it's not really about money at all when you have all the money you ever need. It's about power, control, and legacy; all far more elusive goals than simply money.