Inside Out | Opinion: Asean powers continue to arm-wrestle over China’s nine-dash line and its potential abundance of resources, including the seaweed
Resources greater than those held in US shale deposits will be accessible a decade from now in the South China Seabed, according to some estimates. Collaboration between the economies circling would be economically transformative and cool the ongoing militaristic ardour
Down in the weeds, beneath all of the high-level belt and road diplomacy in Beijing on May 14-15, my thoughts were turned to flammable ice and brown laminaria – otherwise known as sea kelp. The obvious connection – the small but sensitive matter of the South China Sea.
Officials from China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations gathered in remote Guizhou province – where I am sure, 1,000km inland from the Pacific Ocean, there was no evidence either of flammable ice or kelp – to arm-wrestle over the South China Sea.
The claim is that significant progress was made. Officials say they have agreed on a “framework” for a South China Sea code of conduct but they cannot discuss the details in public because consultations are still ongoing and they do not want to attract “interference”.
Whether you trust them or not, the simple fact that no third world war has broken out over the South China Sea since July, when the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled against China that its “nine-dash line” claiming sovereignty over most of the South China Sea had no legal basis, must surely be encouraging.
Given that this is not an issue most of us spend much time thinking about, a brief reprise of the conflict so far, the court ruling and recent developments may be in order.