China Has Nearly Conquered the South China Sea

Thanks PO1 Tony Holland for sharing the perspective that "Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s rapprochement with China, a gambit that has traded security concessions for economic and investment largesse, has once again been undermined by developments in the South China Sea.
Undisclosed sources, most likely from the Philippine defense establishment, gave the Philippine Daily Inquirer a new cache of satellite images which show China has virtually completed its militarization of the artificially-created islands it controls in the contested maritime area."
Of course those of us who have been following the South China Sea drama involving the UN, USA, China, Philippines, Japan and Vietnam, recognize that China has tried to pull; all the stops in their "gambit" to control the lucrative mineral and oil reserves in the South China Sea.
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