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well, one problem here is that the notion of international law is, in this situation, kinda nebulous.
a second is that this was an american surveillance ship. i don't quite see what it could possibly have been doing there, really.
third is that from what i've read, you're alot more bent about this than is the navy. i think an explanation for this is the nebulousness of the law, the questions around what is and is not territorial waters and what that means--my impression is that in this area there's a continual low-level game of chicken going on involving lots of sides and that this particular incident--which is neither the first nor the last nor even particularly interesting--happened at a curious time and in a curious way and so got a bunch of press. i see this as a distracting piece of old-school grand game theater that had the advantage of being able to distract folk from the myriad ways in which it is self-evident that nation-states are now functionally obsolete and provide a little nostalgic moment--in this situation, the us/them business still operates. not only that, but there's at least some imperial anxiety about china ending up a primary beneficiary of any real collapse of the existing geopolitical/economic order--so a bit of dickwaving functions to assuage them too.
personally, i was more unsettled about the nuclear submarines bumping into each other in the context of war games. i just was.
as for taiwan, i don't feel a whole lot like saying the same thing again so i won't.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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