Clinton is talking big about the South China Sea.
Why has the US chosen to take action with this dispute?
How critical is this region to US trade?
Does the US have the spare military strength to take on China, on any level?
Link to the whole NY Times story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/wo...ef=global-home
Quote:
U.S. Challenges China on Island Chain
By MARK LANDLER
HANOI, Vietnam — Opening a new source of potential friction with China, the United States said on Friday that it was ready to step into a tangled dispute between China and its smaller Asian neighbors over a string of strategically sensitive islands in the South China Sea.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking in Vietnam at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation, or Asean, said, “The United States has a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia’s maritime commons and respect for international law in the South China Sea.”
The United States, she said, was prepared to facilitate multilateral negotiations to settle competing claims over the islands — among them the Spratly and Paracel islands — something sought by Vietnam, which has had deadly clashes with China over them. In 1988 warships from China and Vietnam traded fire in the Spratly Islands, sinking several Vietnamese boats and killing dozens of sailors.
China’s maritime ambitions have expanded along with its military and economic muscle. It has long laid claim to islands in the South China Sea because they are rich in oil and natural gas deposits. And it has put American officials on notice that it will not brook foreign interference in the waters off its southeastern coast, which it views as a “core interest” of sovereignty.
Tensions also flared on a more familiar front, North Korea, with Mrs. Clinton accusing that country of “provocative, dangerous behavior” while a North Korean official threatened a “physical response” to joint American-South Korean naval exercises off the Korean Peninsula and Japan this weekend.
“This is not defensive training” said the spokesman, Ri Tong-il, who noted that the United States would mobilize one of its most formidable nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, the George Washington. “It is a grave threat to the Korean Peninsula and also to the region of Asia as a whole.”
While the harsh words between North Korea and the United States predictably dominated this meeting, Mrs. Clinton’s comments about the South China Sea turned a spotlight on a less visible source of conflict in the region.
For decades, China has sparred with Southeast Asian nations over control of 200 tiny islands, rocks and spits of sand that dot these waters. In 1974 China seized the Paracel islands from Vietnam, and in January it announced plans to develop the islands for tourism — ratcheting up tension with Vietnam, which has never recognized China’s territorial claims.
Vietnam’s strategy has been to “internationalize” the dispute by bringing in other players and forcing China to negotiate in multilateral forums. Mrs. Clinton’s announcement that the United States would be willing to play a part was a significant victory for the Vietnamese.
But it could irritate Washington’s relations with Beijing, which were frayed by the announcement of the joint naval exercises off the Korean Peninsula. Last March, the Chinese government told two visiting senior Obama administration officials, Jeffrey A. Bader and James B. Steinberg, that it would not tolerate any interference in the South China Sea, an official said.
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Here's another website that gives a bit of background on the issues facing the South China Sea:
http://volvbilis.wordpress.com/2010/...he-coming-war/
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My initial gut reaction when I read this story was, "Why do they stand up now when they didn't fight for Tibet?" Then I decided to look at a map. My geography is a bit rusty, so I was a bit shocked when I realized the number of countries that are impacted by any dispute in the South China Sea (Note that Korea is North of this region).
US-based companies have a great deal of manufacturing in this part of the world. Check out your clothes, and if they're not made in India or China they're likely made in one of these affected countries: Taiwan, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia or the Phillipines. US energy companies also seem to have an interest in these waters. Somehow I think that the energy companies have more political pull than clothing manufacturers.
Any American businesses have more pull than a bunch of buddhist monks. Sure Tibet's land mass migh be more massive than all of the islands in the South China Sea put together, but it isn't exactly known for its impact on international trade. The following map shows that India is the only world power impacted by the dissapearance of Tibet.
They do have some substantial resources that China has tapped: Hydroelectric and geothermal energy, coal, chlorite and lithium deposits. But American companies don't seem to have a history of interest in Tibet's natural resources, explaining the lack of US military involvement that might have prevented the takeover.
So, it's apparent that the South China Sea has greater international importance than other regions that China has taken over. But just wha can the rest of the world do about it? And what will we decide to do? Seems like an interesting bit of news to follow.