If you haven’t been following the claims, counterclaims, provocations, and responses going on in the South China Sea, this Washington Post article describes an aspect of what’s going on that you may not have thought about—fishing:
TANMEN, China — In the disputed waters of the South China Sea, fishermen are the wild card.
China is using its vast fishing fleet as the advance guard to press its expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, experts say. That is not only putting Beijing on a collision course with its Asian neighbors, but also introducing a degree of unpredictability that raises the risks of periodic crises.
In the past few weeks, tensions have flared with Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam as Chinese fishermen, often backed up by coast guard vessels, have ventured far from their homeland and close to other nations’ coasts. They are just the latest conflicts in China’s long-running battle to expand its fishing grounds and simultaneously exert its maritime dominance.
There are eight countries and territories that border on the South China Sea: the People’s Republic of China (China), the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam. All of these have territorial claims within the South China Sea, many conflicting. With its construction of artificial islands far beyond its shores, China is clearly attempting to finesse the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to which it is a party. Under the convention, China’s “exclusive economic zone” (EEZ) extends two hundred nautical miles beyond its shores. Extend the shores—extend the EEZ.
The present claims in the South China Sea, both to territorial waters and EEZs, are thorny but manageable. With China’s extending its shores with these artificial islands the conflicting claims become intractable.
China’s aggressive fishing doesn’t stop within its own putative EEZ but extends into the EEZs of other countries. Just last month as reported by CNN, the Argentine coast guard sank a Chinese fishing vessel poaching with a restricted area.
One problem is that the US has implicitly recognized the legitimacy of China’s claims. We have avoided coming closer than 12 miles to the artificial islands, and the one B52 overflight that did occur resulted in a formal US apology to China. Any incursion now, as Adm Harris urges, would be a major change in US policy, and might be regarded by the Chinese as an act of war.
China has won this round; the South China Sea belongs to China. As the relative balance of power shifts in China’s favor, someday the US Navy wil
be excluded from it. This is the first step in the rollback of the Pax Americana. Obama is not really the cause.
Sometimes the hold of the stick of Leadership on this issu, he’s holding it by the brown end.
FWIW, over the USNI blog, interesting post, White Hulls to the Front in WESTPAC, about how everyone is using their very lightly armed Coast Guard vessels to dance. The poster states those who know China best are treating this a legal issue rather than national security “send out the Fleet” matter and maybe we should take a deep breath.
The problem with that, walt, is that it’s destablilizing. The other countries have claims, too, and they’re claims that would stand up in international courts. By China’s “we’ve fished there for hundreds of years standard” we own all of the oceans because we’ve fished there for hundreds of years.
According to recent opinion polls, China’s government’s moves in the South China Sea are not popular in China. Sure, there’s a minority who think it’s a good idea but more don’t. IMO we should be helping the Filipinos and Vietnamese build their own artificial islands. China’s not going to fight a real shooting war over bogus claims.
What a clever counter-move. I like that.