South China Sea (Part 2 of 2)

Every day, hundreds of ships arrive in China bringing coal, bauxite, iron ore, raw materials (imports) to make all things and leave to deliver the world, computers, cars, clothes, electronics, cell phones (exports). Except for Singapore, the world’s top container ports are in China; Shanghai’s Pudong, Tsingtao, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Xiamen. This continuous line of ships from the middle east (oil, gas) mineral, coal, cotton, rice from Vietnam, Thailand, India, Europe, Australia, Africa pass through the South China Sea. China is afraid its lifeblood will collapse if the South China Sea is blocked by the US or Europe. There is no other shorter, faster, cheaper efficient way to bring raw materials to China and to send its finished products to the world except through the South China Sea.

Before the 1990s, this was not a national security issue because there were very few ships passing through. Now there are some twisted complicated problems. 1. Taiwan, a part of China ever since, is also claiming the South China Sea. 2. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). China has been using this sea route since the 12th century (Ocean Silk Road) to trade with Africa, Middle East, India, Indonesia under the Shri Visaya and Majapahit empires, Thailand, Vietnam etc. China says by hundreds of years of uninterrupted use and being the only sea power in the South China Sea, they own it by prescription. 3. The issue of fishing rights is academic because of overfishing since the 1960s. 4. The irony is that all the oil seismic tests all over the South China Sea since the 1990s show there is very little oil offshore. So what are we quarreling about? 5. USA, trying to get pogi points, political and military support, sided with ASEAN in the South China Sea 9 dash line issue. The Asian nationalists (not colonialists) say US is interfering with a purely Asian issue when it has no military/economic interest in the area. Very few US commercial ships use the South China Sea. 6. Self-proclaimed academe/military international experts think there will be no nuclear war over. Itsy bitsy teeny weeny tiny islets that disappear during high tide and typhoons and shoals that never see sunlight. For China, this 1930 Map with the 9 dash lines became a national symbol of honor overturning the humiliation it suffered when the West got prize cities for free; Hongkong (England), Tsingtao (Germany), and Shanghai Bund (all western states, Japan, US, etc where Chinese laws did not apply and only westerns can live).