People would be much irritated when total strangers step on their rights. How much more to someone they actually know? When this happens you may just let it pass, but what if it happens again? Are you just going to pretend nothing’s wrong or are you going to make a move?
Territorial disputes in the South China Sea involve both island and maritime claims. Brunei, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam are claiming each other’s territory basing on their Exclusive Economic Zones. That’s their right but these islands including the waters surrounding them are rich when it comes to resources.
You can be dubbed rich if you have a lot of money especially on natural resources as reserves. Mercantilism, I guess?
We might think crude oil is just an ordinary product but it isn’t. It was even once one of the reasons why there was a fish kill in the west. It was a big loss for the oil company. Crude oil can be transformed to various forms of petrochemicals. Gasoline is one and persons owning oil companies are rich here in the Philippines, take note.
South China Sea has a lot of crude oil reserves. The Ministry of Geological Resources and Mining of the People’s Republic of China estimates that the South China Sea may contain 17.7 billion tons of crude oil compared to Kuwait with 13 billion tons. In the years that followed after the said announcement intensified the claims regarding the islands.
Fishes are for food not for riches but why is that there are people who are after them and harvest species of them in great numbers?; in other words, EXPLOITING. This should be stopped because fishes may not reproduce enough to replace much of what have been harvested. Corals are one of the most beautiful things and they’ve been slowly destroyed.
South China Sea is abundant in terms of marine life. In 1988, it was believed to have 8% of the world’s fishing catches and this is a figure that grows continuously.
The coral reefs in these waters are home to numerous species of fishes. They provide good environment for breeding and production of more animals.
South China Sea is the busiest shipping route, In the 80’s, at least 270 merchant ships used the route every day. These days, more than half of the tonnages of oil are transported by sea pass through these waters.
Maritime traffic was often evident in the South China Sea; three times more than Suez Canal, five times than the Panama Canal.
To conclude, all the states fighting over these territories in the South China Sea are just after the money in which the islands and waters are great sources of.
Cartoon by Prince Irrel Santillan
No comments:
Post a Comment