{"id":4439,"date":"2016-06-04T21:55:06","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T21:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4439"},"modified":"2016-06-04T21:55:06","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T21:55:06","slug":"why-is-the-south-china-sea-dispute-so-crucial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4439","title":{"rendered":"Why is the South China Sea dispute so crucial?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this excerpt from \u201cAsia\u2019s Cauldron: The South China Sea And The End Of a Stable Pacific,\u201d author Robert D. Kaplan, chief geopolitical analyst for Stratfor and former member of the Pentagon\u2019s Defence Policy Board, explains how the region\u2019s unique geography fosters aggression.<\/em><\/p>\n

The South China Sea functions as the throat of the Western Pacific and Indian oceans \u2014 the mass of connective economic tissue where global sea routes coalesce. <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is the heart of Eurasia\u2019s navigable rim land, punctuated by the Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar straits.<\/p>\n

More than half of the world\u2019s annual merchant fleet tonnage passes through these choke points, and a third of all maritime traffic worldwide.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Roughly two thirds of South Korea\u2019s energy supplies, nearly 60 per cent of Japan\u2019s and Taiwan\u2019s energy supplies, and 80 per cent of China\u2019s crude oil imports come through the South China Sea. Whereas in the Persian Gulf only energy is transported, in the South China Sea you have energy, finished goods, and unfinished goods.<\/p>\n

In addition to centrality of location, the South China Sea has proven oil reserves of seven billion barrels, and an estimated 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.<\/p>\n

If Chinese calculations are correct that the South China Sea will ultimately yield 130 billion barrels of oil (and there is some serious doubt about these estimates), then the South China Sea contains more oil than any area of the globe except Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

If there really is so much oil in the South China Sea, then China will have partially alleviated its \u201cMalacca dilemma\u201d \u2014 its reliance on the narrow and vulnerable Strait of Malacca for so much of its energy needs coming from the Middle East.<\/p>\n

And the China National Offshore Oil Corporation has invested $US20 billion in the belief that such amounts of oil really do exist in the South China Sea. China is desperate for new energy. Chinese oil reserves account for only 1.1 per cent of the world total, while it consumes over 10 per cent of world oil production and over 20 per cent of all the energy consumed on the planet.<\/p>\n

It is not only location and energy reserves that promise to give the South China Sea critical geostrategic importance, it is the territorial disputes surrounding these waters, home to more than two hundred small islands, rocks, and coral reefs, only about three dozen of which are permanently above water.<\/p>\n

Yet these specks of land, buffeted by typhoons, are valuable mainly because of the oil and natural gas that might lie nearby in the intricate, folded layers of rock beneath the sea. Brunei claims a southern reef of the Spratly Islands.<\/p>\n

Malaysia claims three islands in the Spratlys. The Philippines claims eight islands in the Spratlys and significant portions of the South China Sea. Vietnam, Taiwan, and China each claims much of the South China Sea, as well as all of the Spratly and Paracel island groups.<\/p>\n

In the middle of 2010 there was quite a stir when China was said to have called the South China Sea a \u201ccore interest.\u201d It turns out that Chinese officials never quite said that: no matter. Chinese maps have been consistent.<\/p>\n

Beijing claims to own what it calls its \u201chistoric line\u201d: that is, the heart of the entire South China Sea in a grand loop \u2014 the \u201ccow\u2019s tongue\u201d as the loop is called \u2014 surrounding these island groups from China\u2019s Hainan Island south 1,200 miles to near Singapore and Malaysia.<\/p>\n

The result is that all of these littoral states are more or less arrayed against China, and dependent upon the United States for diplomatic and military backing. (Business Insider Australia)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this excerpt from \u201cAsia\u2019s Cauldron: The South China Sea And The End Of a Stable Pacific,\u201d author Robert D. Kaplan, chief geopolitical analyst for Stratfor and former member of the Pentagon\u2019s Defence Policy Board, explains how the region\u2019s unique geography fosters aggression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}