In the times of climate change a heat record chases the next, the poles and glaciers will melt, the water in the oceans heats up – and as a consequence the sea level will rise. Low-lying island States and low-lying coastal regions threaten to sink in the water. The oceans grow and the dry surface of the earth shrinks.

This is a quite realistic scenario, but it has to arrive by no means. At least not everywhere. The forces of nature, the ingenuity of the people. Ever since the 11. Century, before the Netherlands, as you can gain Land from the sea. The Dutch cherish their country with the traditional dykes and dams.

excavator-ships: How China’s excavator, the U.S. Navy Fullscreen

to outmaneuver The Tian Kun Hao cuts the sea surface, it can then absorb.

©Mao Zhenhua Picture Alliance country you can.

today, However, there is a very different technique of land reclamation: Huge dredging vessels to pour artificial surfaces It is also in the Middle East, in Monaco and in Japan were created in the last decades, Islands near the coast artificially, to create a space that was on the mainland.

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However, in recent years, a new interest to add to this: The up and coming super the dredging vessel has been recognized as a means of geopolitics. And, as always in China, there is a big Plan behind it. In 2001, China’s excavator inventory of the fleet of only a few old ships. At that time, the government declared the dredging to be a particularly important growth sector, to strengthen the naval power of China. Since then, the Chinese dredging vessels develop and build like no other country in the world. In the last ten years, about 200 vessels of increasing size were built. In 2013 China was the largest seebagger fleet in the world. And you will continue to grow. Worldwide, Beijing invested in infrastructure and port facilities – will be dredged, of course, with the Chinese machines.

Islands, where reefs were

The country is in a perpetual economic boom, so flirt together in China, more in the water than in the whole of Europe and the Middle East. Most of the dredging projects are international problems. Who should complain if two artificial Islands are heaped up, the support, the gigantic bridge, which Hong Kong with Macau and the Chinese mainland.

In other projects, it looks very different. Because Beijing is creating new Islands, where previously the only reefs were little hervorgelugt out of the water. While the island of fear States, such as Tuvalu, in time, disappear in the ocean, expanding China to its reefs are massive.

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This “Upgrade” has far-reaching consequences. Once the reef is to the island, claimed by Beijing, with robust measures of all the sovereign rights of a “real” island – without any If and But. This leads to a tremendous acquisition of land, as it has since the times of colonialism. On the water the dredgers are similar to the settlers treks in covered wagons, which have advanced in the 19th century, the “Frontier” in the United States further and further to the West.

May be the individual island is also so small, Beijing claimed a 12-nautical-mile Zone in the sea area around the whole reef as its own territorial waters. In this Zone, a much larger area as an exclusive economic zone is linked legally. So the country has huge areas travel around.

The United States to challenge the claim

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Legally, the process is more than controversial. All of the residents to fight back against it. On the territory in the South China sea, many countries are making historical claims, like China. The dispute lasted long, but the workers on the dredging vessel’s confronted on abstract legal arguments with the Power of the Artifact. You make from uninhabited rocky peaks permanently manned Outpost in Beijing. This is happening at an incredible pace: In the years 2013 and 2014, the Chinese excavator added to the Spratly reefs within just 18 months, 1,200 hectares of new Land. The small Islands are transformed into military bases. The larger carriers, the role of unsinkable aircraft and missiles to bases.

The international waters of the excavator to the Chinese territory. The US B-52 bombers over the Islands to fly and destroyers close to him pass.

But Beijing had not long to impress. In September 2018 average, a Chinese destroyer, with the intention of the course, the USS Decatur, was aware of a collision. From the point of view of the United States, the Decatur took advantage of the right to free Passage, in the Chinese reading of the US ship violated Chinese territorial rights.

in 2018, was the Extreme: the captain of The American destroyer was in the last second and slowed his ship, in which he let the engines run backwards. Only about 40 meters in front of the bow of the USS Decatur out of the Chinese ship over herself.

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In the next few years will show whether the conquest strategy is working ships by means of excavator. Beijing is apparently ready to use in the showdown with the United States to increase more and more. The US should get out of the dangerous poker game, will be able to threaten any other country, the claim of Beijing seriously.

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scrap-ruin dresses from China the prom

What girl doesn’t dream for the prom of an elaborate design of dress. If it is nur should cost 20 Euro, many girls weak. But you get only a shapeless Sack delivered.

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