| Tango01 | 06 Feb 2016 10:13 p.m. PST |
"The South China Sea functions as the throat of the Western Pacific and Indian oceans — the mass of connective economic tissue where global sea routes coalesce. Here is the heart of Eurasia's navigable rimland, punctuated by the Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar straits. More than half of the world's annual merchant fleet tonnage passes through these choke points, and a third of all maritime traffic worldwide. The oil transported through the Malacca Strait from the Indian Ocean, en route to East Asia through the South China Sea, is triple the amount that passes through the Suez Canal and fifteen times the amount that transits the Panama Canal…"
Main page
link Good explanation on why the South China Sea is important to everyone. Amicalement
Armand |
| skippy0001 | 07 Feb 2016 5:55 a.m. PST |
Typhoons…everybody is waiting to see if typhoons wipe those 'islands' out. My father said that three destroyers rolled over during a typhoon while his convoy was delivering troops and supplies to the Nationalists in WWII. They were lost with all hands. |
| Bangorstu | 07 Feb 2016 6:04 a.m. PST |
Well fortunately its thousands of miles away. From a European perspective it makes a pleasant change.. |
| USAFpilot | 07 Feb 2016 2:48 p.m. PST |
As long as there is no interference with commercial shipping I could care less who claims which island. Not our concern; a regional issue. |
| Lion in the Stars | 07 Feb 2016 8:11 p.m. PST |
@USAFpilot: The problem is that once China claims those waters as their territory and makes it stick, they will have the ability and legal rights to stop commercial shipping. |
| Mako11 | 07 Feb 2016 9:21 p.m. PST |
They're already claiming the whole region now, and saying the US and others are escalating tensions in the area, that is their "sovereign territory" which is just ridiculous, when just the opposite is true. They're hoping to use the old maxim of tell a lie often enough, and loudly enough that some people will believe them. |
| Whatisitgood4atwork | 07 Feb 2016 11:34 p.m. PST |
They're hoping to use the old maxim of tell a lie often enough, and loudly enough that some people will believe them. I think the maxim they are counting on is more the one about possession being 9/10 of the law. If they occupy it and garrison it at strategic points, and nobody challenges them, then de-facto it is theirs. |
| USAFpilot | 08 Feb 2016 8:11 a.m. PST |
Lion: territorial waters only extend 12 nautical miles off the coast. There is also the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which protects commercial shipping transiting territorial waters. So China will not have the legal right to interfere with commercial shipping and it is silly to think that they would. China wants the islands for the same reason every other country in the region wants them, to exploit their natural resources surrounding them. Let's not worry about a problem that does not exist (like WMD in Iraq before GW2 comes to mind). If and when China interferes with commercial shipping, which would not be in their best interest, we will respond. Every day commercial ships enter Iranian territorial waters when they transit the Strait of Hormuz. |
| Lion in the Stars | 08 Feb 2016 11:36 a.m. PST |
@USAF Pilot: Yes, and China is trying to build/claim so many rocks in the SCS that the entire body of water is Chinese territorial waters. |
| 15mm and 28mm Fanatik | 08 Feb 2016 12:36 p.m. PST |
It's all about economics. Right of transit is not the salient issue. What's at stake are the allocation of resources around the disputed reefs and whether the sharing agreements (if any) are acceptable to all parties that claim exploitation rights. The problem is that the US is so dependent on cheap Chinese imports and tied into China's economy that she is very reluctant to take sides in such "petty" squabbles which likely will end up pleasing no one regardless of which side she takes. |
