China to the US: Mind your business in the South China Sea
Source: Business Insider
The United States should not decide its policy on the South China Seabased on what its allies think, and should stick to its promises not to take sides in the dispute, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Thursday ahead of Sino-U.S. security talks.
China has been angered by what it views as provocative U.S. military patrols close to islandsChina controls in the South China Sea. The United States says the patrols are to protect freedom of navigation.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims, as well as close military ties with Washington.
Speaking at a forum ahead of next week's high-level meetings with U.S. officials in Beijing, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said his country had every right to protect its sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea.
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Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/mind-your-own-business-in-the-south-china-sea-2016-6
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)What is in the US national interest in deciding this issue?
And is it worth any of our daughters or sons?
jpak
(41,742 posts)No one but China agrees to these territorial claims that could limit any vessel from transiting these waters.
A large fraction of the worlds shipping trade passes through here- and many nations have legitimate claim to their 200 nm Economic Zone that China seeks to annex.
It is a big deal for all concerned.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)treaty allies, and many of the countries around the South China Sea are involved in the TPP or may become involved if the TPP actually happens.
See my post here for a further discussion.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2111738
jpak
(41,742 posts)China and Vietnam fought a battle over the Spratly Islands in 1988 - it was a massacre.
Trade agreements have nothing to do with this.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)from whom we import necessities. In 1988, we did very little business with China, and almost no business with Viet Nam. There was much more manufacturing here in the US. Our corporations have increasingly done manufacturing there, and our wonderful financiers are there. Things were moving toward China after Dung, but it turned into a tsunami after MFN for China.
Now, if TPP gets off the ground and Vietnam joins, we will be importing tons from Vietnam because it is even cheaper than China and our financiers will be all over the place.
That makes us incredibly dependent on keeping peace in the South China Sea, and the East China Sea, for that matter.
China says that it will not abide by the decision at the Hague. We, together with Australia and India, will continue to sail and fly within 12 miles of the Chinese claimed reefs, and the other countries in the area will keep on resisting China. No country has shown any willingness to back down.
Too much money, too much national pride, too many guns, and a big country which cannot manufacture its own toothbrushes, underwear and socks if things get hot, sounds to me like a recipe for war.
All the WWI combatants traded with each other a lot, yet they managed to go to war and slaughter each other for four years.
Somewhere around my house, I have a cautionary book by the Chair of one of the Oxbridge history departments on this aspect of WWI. I can't lay my hands on it at the moment, but I'd be happy to PM you when I do lay my hands on it.
Just hoping you're right and I'm wrong.
newthinking
(3,982 posts)China has claimed this as an even larger area, since the 1940s, and reduced their claim at one point. I have no doubt that the trade agreements have escalated this as they are seen in a larger context.
It is a folly of a high order, what they are trying to do in the S. China Sea. It will make Iraq look shrewd.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)And that point is that they don't recognize the maritime law recognized by every other country in the world. Every other country in the world abides by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea which, among other things, establishes the extent of a nation's territorial waters. China alone unilaterally claims nearly the entire South China Sea as it's own. It's a wildly lawless and reckless claim. It bullies every other nation with claims in the region and totally ignores the normal practice for settling these kinds of disputes.
I don't want to see us go to war over it, but its not my call.
newthinking
(3,982 posts)also encompass the entire strait?
We have a simplified view and not a lot of cultural awareness (not to mention a censored press (through omission). This is more complicated than it needs to be an there are multiple parties that have had a hand in escalating it.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)are ready, willing, and able to work out their claims through the UN like every other country in the world does. China isn't.
newthinking
(3,982 posts)China has expressed that the dispute should not be dealt with until the actual spratley islands dispute is dealt with.
The other claimants did not get interested until after Oil was discovered in the area.
Hell, the Philippines "claim" is based on forcefully extracting a signature from someone who made a pseudo claim in 1954!
The more one actually READs and researches the more it is obvious that our media feeds us a narrative completely owned by power interests (as much reporting on foreign events of interest to TPTB are).
I am not saying that China is necessarily a rightful claimant: But they sure do seem to be telling the truth when they claim that the actual sovereignty of the islands needs to be dealt with. And from the history it appears that Financial interests are all intertwined.
And why are we being so insistent that China adhere to a convention that we don't adhere to?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands_dispute
newthinking
(3,982 posts)"Every other country recognizes UNCOLOS."
Um, THE US DOESN'T.......
Red is for non-party
Yellow is for signatories
jpak
(41,742 posts)United States position
Main article: United States non-ratification of the UNCLOS
Although the United States helped shape the Convention and its subsequent revisions,[5] and though it signed the 1994 Agreement on Implementation, it has not signed the Convention as it objected to Part XI of the Convention.[6][7]
In 1983 President Ronald Reagan, through Proclamation No. 5030, claimed a 200-mile exclusive economic zone. In December 1988 President Reagan, through Proclamation No. 5928, extended U.S. territorial waters from three nautical miles to twelve nautical miles for national security purposes. However a legal opinion from the Justice Department questioned the President's constitutional authority to extend sovereignty as Congress has the power to make laws concerning the territory belonging to the United States under the U.S. Constitution. In any event, Congress needs to make laws defining if the extended waters, including oil and mineral rights, are under State or Federal control.[8][9]
On 16 July 2012, the U.S. Senate had 34 Republican Senators who have indicated their intention to vote against ratification of the Treaty if it comes to a vote. Since at least 2/3 of the 100 member Senate (at least 67 Senators) are required to ratify a treaty, consideration of the treaty was deferred again.[10]
Some American commentators, including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have warned that ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty might lead to its taxing authority being extended to cover the resources of outer space.[11]
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)which is the topic of the article.
Google nine dash line for an actual map.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=nine+dash+line
Seems like a potential war, lots of death and all that, deserves at least a map, eh?
Equinox Moon
(6,344 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)newthinking
(3,982 posts)and the backdrop for all this is the escalation of a worldwide resource and economic war that is making everyone belligerent.
It would be so nice to get a President in place that would seek de-escalation as more than half of this dynamic is because no-one, not even us, is playing by any rules and it is only going to get worse.
This map shows all the claims. There is a history behind China's line that of course does not get discussed in our media. That does not justify it, but it is more complex than just "who is being a bully".
Notice that Vietnam and the Phillipines also have unusually large claims. Others have also made island claims and filled in land for bases, not "just" China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_South_China_Sea
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)jpak
(41,742 posts)just sayin'
yup
Equinox Moon
(6,344 posts)Reversing our trajectory away from 'domination at all cost' to one of 'preservation at all cost'. When our collective narrative shifts from aggression to one of peace, the planet will grow greener and the spiritual desert will rain with glory.
Equinox Moon
(6,344 posts)Please, no war!
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)an attack on Taiwan will only be one piece of it.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)newthinking
(3,982 posts)China had not "bothered" to equip submarines with Nukes until this year, which is pretty amazing when one thinks about it. Why has that only occurred in recent times? What is changing in worldwide dynamics?
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)The Beijing cabal has backed themselves into a corner and are trying to do anything to weasel out and save face in front of the world and the people they have been blowing hot air up asses over these two island groups for five years.
I say let them try. Beijing knows they are alone in this fight.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)The PRC is in a pretty solid position, legality-wise in occupying Scarborough Shoal.
And that means its pretty much free to build on it. Even island-build it.
The United States and the Philippines know that.
Losing Scarborough Shoal was the price of the pivot.
Its just hard to admit it.
http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-price-of-pivot-scarborough-shoal.html
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Ive been a somewhat skeptical concerning Western handwringing about perceived PRC intentions to islandbuild Scarborough Shoal, seeing them as perhaps pivot-promoting alarmism.
But, as Freud said, sometimes a cigar is a cigar and sometimes a threat to build the shoal is a threat to build the shoal.
My rethink was prompted by the appearance on a Chinese military enthusiasts forum of this plan to convert Scarborough Shoal into a world class tourist destination
http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-ultimate-pivot-pricetag-luxury_28.html
bemildred
(90,061 posts)It is fitting that the same week President Obama was in Hiroshima grappling with the legacy of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Ash Carter was at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis asserting the US commitment to playing an essential and pivotal role in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come, largely through the unrivaled capabilities of the US military.
Let it be said I am not a fan of the Ash Carter perspective. In my view, Carter dwells happily and uncritically at the heart of the Pentagon bubble, where American military dominance is ipso facto the greatest good, securing that dominance is the best way to advance the interests of the United States, and keeping America militarily dominant is the best possible outcome for the ROW (Rest of World in mil-speak).
My view is that attempting to sustain U.S. military predominance at the same time U.S. economic dominance is eroding is a destabilizing, dangerous, expensive, distracting, and ultimately futile process.
In Asia, the U.S. has cobbled together a network of ostensibly like-minded partners Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, India to implement a grand alliance against the PRC menace.
http://atimes.com/2016/06/ash-carters-blissful-bubble-of-oblivion/
Equinox Moon
(6,344 posts)than the original article.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Like most "business" sites they mix news and marketing and PR bullshit together.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Despite the name, the South China Sea doesn't belong to them, either...