Center for a New American Security

The Philippines announced on Sunday (Monday in Manila) that it will ignore China’s fishing ban near the disputed Scarborough Shoal that is set to begin on May 16 and run through August 1. “DFA [Department of Foreign Affairs] Secretary Albert del Rosario explained the Philippines will not follow the ban because it has sovereign rights over a portion of the waters where China plans to impose the ban,” according to ABS-CBSNews.com. “However, del Rosario said the Philippines may also impose a similar ban given the depletion of marine resources in its territorial waters.”

China’s announced fishing ban comes as Filipino and Chinese vessels remain in a standoff near the Scarborough Shoal, approximately 120-natutical miles off the Philippine island Luzon. “The stand-off erupted last month after Philippine authorities detected Chinese ships fishing near the Scarborough Shoal,” the Bangkok Post reported. “The two nations have stationed non-military vessels at the shoal since April 8 in an effort to assert their sovereignty over the area.” The standoff has elicited emotional protests in Manila as well as in Beijing.  

Although the Philippines announced it would not abide by China’s fishing ban, Manila expressed a desire to find a peaceful resolution to the ongoing dispute, according to reports. “Despite the pronouncement of resistance against the ban, DFA spokesperson Raul Fernandez said the Philippines is still willing to hold diplomatic talks with the Chinese government to settle the dispute, which has been running for over a month.” Moreover, according to one expert writing in the Asia Times Online, “Even as the rhetoric escalates, moves are being made for economic integration and mutual-benefit.”

Nevertheless, U.S. policymakers charged with managing tensions in the region will remain watchful of developments as they unfold. The recent spat between China and the Philippines also comes on the heels of China’s announcement last week of a technological breakthrough in deep-sea drilling, which may help put China in a position to exploit deep-sea hydrocarbons in contested areas of the South China Sea.

Defense News @Defense_news: “DoD Officials Urge U.S. to Join Sea Treaty bit.ly/LhUsZr.”

Defense News reports on a forum on the Law of the Sea Convention hosted by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Atlantic Council that featured keynote addresses by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and General Martine Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who both urged the U.S. Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention in order to safeguard American interests and U.S. Armed Forces.

MIT Professor M. Taylor Fravel @fravel: “Chinese boats barring Pinoys from fishing in shoal | Philippine Starj.mp/J0qbyu.”

Dr. Fravel links to a story in the Philippine Star that reports that Chinese maritime vessels have imposed fishing restrictions on Filipino fisherman in an area approximately 120-nautical miles off the coast of the Philippine island Luzon, an area that would be considered within the Philippines’ 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone.

On Monday, Chinese media reported that China’s first deep-water drilling rig (developed domestically by the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corporation) will begin operations today in the South China Sea.

To date, China’s offshore oil drilling activities have been restricted to shallow waters (less than 300 meters deep) largely due to the country’s lack of technological capability to drill in deep- and ultra-deep waters. According to one report, China State Shipbuilding Corporation – the company that developed the new rig – says that China will now be able to drill to depths of between 10,000 and 12,000 meters, possibly eclipsing the record set in 2009 by the Deepwater Horizon rig that could drill to 10,683 meters.

The technological milestone is an important development in the South China Sea dispute, where competition over potentially lucrative deep-water oil and natural gas reserves has raised tensions among countries with overlapping claims in the region. China, for example, claims the entire South China Sea as its own. The deep- and ultra-deep water drilling capability will unlock reserves in deep waters, according to reports. Chinese media reports that “About 70 percent of oil and gas reserves in the resource-rich South China Sea is [sic] contained in 1.54 million square km of deep-water regions, or sea areas with depths of over 300 meters.”

There has been a lot of activity in the South China Sea recently, and if you’re like me it is difficult to keep track of it all. Well luckily you don’t have to! Our Asia-Pacific Security team is doing it for you. That’s right: checkout our Flashpoints feature, an online web portal for those studying security in the East and South China Seas, for the latest developments in the region. I particularly recommend the timeline feature.

Also, if you didn’t already seen it, don’t miss Patrick Cronin’s op-ed in The New York Times on Wednesday where he puts the latest Philippine-China Scarborough Shoal scuffle in perspective and recommends how U.S. policymakers should think about engaging in the region.  

Photo: Courtesy of CNAS.org. 

This is a new feature to highlight the top tweets of the week to hit my Twitter feed (@wmrogers).

From The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog @E2Wire: “News bites: White House to promote ‘bioeconomy’ bit.ly/JXftuf.”

The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog discusses the White House’s announced release of a new National Bioeconomy Blueprint on Thursday that is expected to make a broad push for investments in biotechnology, including renewable biofuels.

From Circle of Blue @circleofblue: “Soon, water may be more important that oil to #China @Forbessu.pr/1mAIOg #water

Circle of Blue links to a report in Forbes that discusses the growing strategic importance of water in China, driven in part by increasing demand as well as mismanagement of existing resources. According to the report, “The country’s water supply is smaller than that of the U.S., yet it must meet the needs of a population nearly five times as large. Industrialization has taken its toll on this already limited resource. Industrial and biological pollution has contaminated almost 90 percent of the underground water in Chinese cities.”

 
Later this morning CNAS will release a new policy brief that explores the national security and foreign policy benefits of ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention.

Download Security at Sea: The Case for Ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention here.

While the United States has to date protected its maritime interests without ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) – relying instead on the protections afforded by customary international law – the rise of modern navies and unconventional security threats are making this approach increasingly risky and will imperil U.S. national security interests. LOSC is the only global maritime regime that codifies longstanding maritime norms that are consistent with U.S. interests and protects the status quo. By failing to ratify LOSC, the United States forfeits its ability to shape the interpretation and execution of the convention and protect the provisions that support the existing international order, with consequences that will last for decades. Ratifying the treaty would demonstrate that the United States is serious about upholding international norms on maritime issues at a time when rising powers are challenging existing rules at sea and, as a result, American interests.

But what are those interests? How will LOSC specifically help the United States secure its access to the maritime domain, and achieve broader foreign policy and national security goals? That is the subject of Security at Sea. And while the list of benefits is extensive - and my effort to explore the benefits is by no means exhaustive - there are some specific security issues that I think will resonate with U.S. policymakers. As I argue in the policy brief, ratifying the treaty will:

• Strengthen U.S. counterpiracy and counter weapons of mass destruction proliferation missions;
• Increase America's ability to protect its interests in the Arctic, the South China Sea and the Caribbean Sea; and
• Protect and enhance U.S. sovereignty by allowing the United States to make internationally recognized sovereign claims to its extended continental shelf and the natural resources lying beneath the seabed, including oil and natural gas reserves that will bolster U.S. domestic energy production.

While LOSC is no silver bullet – it won’t help address every challenge that the United States will confront at sea – ratifying the treaty will improve America’s ability to protect many of its global interests by providing a stronger legal foundation for its own maritime activities and helping to shape and enforce international norms and legal authorities. It is time for the U.S. Senate to ratifying LOSC and allow the United States to take advantage of the benefits that will accrue to American interests.

The South China Sea dispute is once again in the headlines, with notable developments that are raising some concerns about increased tensions in the region. On Saturday, Reuters reported that the Chinese military issued the sternest warning to date regarding U.S. military involvement in the territorial dispute, in part due to combined exercises with the Philippine military. “China's official Liberation Army Daily warned that recent jostling with the Philippines over disputed seas where both countries have sent ships could boil over into outright conflict, and laid much of the blame at Washington's door,” the Reuters report stated, adding: 

‘Anyone with clear eyes saw long ago that behind these drills is reflected a mentality that will lead the South China Sea issue down a fork in the road towards military confrontation and resolution through armed force,’ said the commentary in the Chinese paper, which is the chief mouthpiece of the People's Liberation Army.

 

‘Through this kind of meddling and intervention, the United States will only stir up the entire South China Sea situation towards increasing chaos, and this will inevitably have a massive impact on regional peace and stability.’

On Sunday, Commander of the U.S. Marines in the Pacific Lieutenant General Duane Thiessen reiterated the United States’ defense commitment to the Philippines. In a statement to reporters on Palawan Island, Lieutenant General Thiessen said, “The United States and the Philippines have a mutual defense treaty which guarantees that we get involved in each other's defense and that is self explanatory,” according to a report by ABS-CBSNews.com.

For those who did not tune in last week, this is a new feature to highlight the top tweets of the week to hit my Twitter feed (@wmrogers). The list is completely subjective, of course, but I hope it is helpful to readers interested in following natural security news a little bit closer.

The American Enterprise Institute @AEI: “Global warming doesn’t rank at or near the top of issues people want the president and Congress to address ow.ly/an01c.”

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) published a compilation of polls on the environment and energy, highlighting public opinion on a range of issues, from nuclear energy, the Keystone XL pipeline to global climate change. The findings are instructive, but I don’t necessarily agree with the analysis that AEI makes about some of the issues. For example, the report notes that “Global warming doesn’t rank at or near the top of issues people want the president and Congress to address. In January 2012, 25 percent said global warming should be a top priority, ranking at the bottom in terms of top priorities.” But read another way, a quarter of Americans find that global climate change should be the top priority for U.S. policymakers. Given the litany of challenges the country faces, isn’t it still substantial that 25 percent of Americans want action taken to address climate change and consider it a top priority? Regardless, the report is worth a read and you can make up your own mind about what it all means.

MIT Professor M. Taylor Fravel @fravel: “India says oil, gas cooperation with Vietnam in the East Sea will continuej.mp/J7TcoC.”

Professor Fravel tweets that India will continue to cooperate with Vietnam to exploit energy resources in Vietnam’s East Sea (also known as the South China Sea), despite objections from China. This has been a huge source of tension recently between India and China. China objects to “outsiders” getting engaged in the South China Sea dispute – an area that China claims is its territorial sea.  (To learn more, read this post I wrote in September on India’s South China Sea gambit.)

This weekend’s news highlighted several ongoing territorial disputes across the Indo-Pacific region, from resource-rich Kashmir to the potentially hydrocarbon-rich South China Sea.

On the far West of the Indo-Pacific, The New York Times published a report on Sunday drawing attention to the Siachen Glacier and the intractable territorial dispute between Indian and Pakistan over Kashmir. The report comes on the heels of an avalanche last week that buried 138 Pakistani soldiers and civilians. “In outposts up to 22,000 feet above sea level, the temperature can plunge to 58 below, and linger there for months,” The New York Times reported. “Patrolling soldiers tumble into yawning crevasses. Frostbite chews through unprotected flesh. Blizzards blow, weapons seize up and even simple body functions become intolerable.” Indeed, what makes the Siachen Glacier noteworthy is not that it is the world’s highest battlefield, per se – it is that the conflict there is more a fight “against the mountain, not the man,” The New York Times reported.

This is a new feature to highlight the top tweets of the week to hit my Twitter feed (@wmrogers). The list is completely subjective, of course, but I hope it is helpful to readers interested in following natural security news a little bit closer.

From Reuters’ @alertnetclimate: “Private funding for humanitarian response on the rise, as government budgets squeezed - report ow.ly/aeinB #aid#disasters.”

This is an interesting story to follow given the potential increase in demand for governments to support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions due to climate-related and other natural disasters. Institutions like the U.S. military may be called on to support HA/DR missions in order to help dampen the impact of these natural disasters, which can have knock-on effects for security and stability.

From The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog @E2Wire: “News bites: Study questions natural gas climate benefits, pump prices may have peaked, and morebit.ly/IrIEVM.”

The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog links to a Wall Street Journal report on a new study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that challenges that assumption the natural gas reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to other fossil fuels. The study notesthat methane (CH4) leakages throughout the lifecycle production process could offset the greenhouse gas benefits. The study is very important given the recent attention to natural gas production in the United States, largely from shale rock.