Back in 2007, I created this graphic to explain China's long-term expansionist goal which was based on the strategy of accumulating wealth by undercutting the world's manufacturers with cheap labor to become the world's manufacturing center. That strategy has worked superbly.
[click image to enlarge]
The latest tactic China is employing is to claim territory and vast tracts of ocean by establishing "cities".
As reported in The Telegraph:
China declares new city to assert control over South China Sea
China founded a new city yesterday more than 200 miles from the mainland, in a bid to cement control over 800,000 squares miles of the South China Sea.
Sansha is based on Yongxing Dao, or Woody Island, a petite heart-shaped island barely a mile long. It is shorter than its airport runway, which is left jutting out to sea.
China's 657th city, as classified by the country's State Council, has a floating population of a few hundred fishermen, a post office, library, bank, supermarket, and hospital and not much else. A casino is planned to drum up tourism.
But it will have a full 45 government officials to run the city, its own mayor, and a Communist party secretary, Fu Zhuang, who has spent his entire career in the People's Liberation Army, rising to become the deputy chief of the Air Defence Office of Hainan province.
It will also have a military garrison, responsible for "national defence mobilisation ... and carrying out military missions".
From here, China expects to administer almost the entire South China Sea, including both the Paracel and Spratly island chains.
While the Islamic march into Europe and America has garnered most of the attention in the West, China has steadily and stealthily worked toward expanding its own empire.