South China Sea teapot tempest served by & with US hot dogs



“Why does China closely guard and claim for itself the South China Sea? China’s security is tied to the South China Sea. The government in Beijing is doing its job, protecting its 1.4 billion people and all the creatures of China. It is that simple,” explained Dale Carter, security director of The RINJ Foundation, which seeks to demilitarize the South China Sea.

“I suspect that if China was not threatened by the United States all these years during which a jingoistic America feared and threatened all developing nations becoming giants, that China would take a more compromising view of this very important body of water,” Ms. Carter added.

“The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates that roughly 80 percent of global trade by volume and 70 percent by value is transported by sea. Of that volume, 60 percent of maritime trade passes through Asia, with the South China Sea carrying an estimated one-third of global shipping. Its waters are particularly critical for China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, all of which rely on the Strait of Malacca, which connects the South China Sea and, by extension, the Pacific Ocean with the Indian Ocean. As the second-largest economy in the world with over 60 percent of its trade in value traveling by sea, China’s economic security is closely tied to the South China Sea,” says the Center for Strategic Studies.

 

Asian families need to eat.
This South China Sea story is told too often with warships but thousands of these small fish boats is what it is really all about. Small fish provide the protein for children in Asian nations. Asian families need to eat small fish. The war America has brought to Asian Seas and American military buildup in the South China Sea between America and China threatens the safety and even the existence of millions of ordinary people. Photo Credit: Micheal John/FPMag


 

Country % Share of World GDP Trade Value through South China Sea (USD billions) South China Sea Trade As % of All Trade in Goods
United States 24.5 208 5.72
China 14.8 1470 39.5
Japan 6.53 240 19.1
Sources: CSIS ChinaPower Project and  International Monetary Fund – Over 64 percent of China’s maritime trade transited the waterway in 2016, while nearly 42 percent of Japan’s maritime trade passed through the South China Sea in the same year. The United States is less reliant on South China Sea, with just over 14 percent of its maritime trade passing through the region.

 

The hot dogs: Translating China’s security concerns to America’s war against Russia in Ukraine is Kamala Harris speaking to Associated Press. Watch the video.

Map of China

The 2023 edition of the routine and boring standard map of China. Credit chinadaily.com.cn.


“The 2023 edition of the standard map of China was released by the Ministry of Natural Resources during the celebration of Surveying and Mapping Publicity Day and the National Mapping Awareness Publicity Week on Monday in Deqing county, Zhejiang province.” (China Daily)

Wu Wenzhong a senior planner within Beijing’s Ministry of Natural Resources, runs a department that provides a “series of standard maps for the public” according to Zhang Wenhui, director of the ministry’s Map Technology Review Center.

“Surveying, mapping and geographic information play an important role in boosting the development of the nation, meeting the needs of all walks of life, supporting the management of natural resources, and helping the construction of ecology and civilization,” said Zhang Wenhui.

“The next step will be to accelerate the application of geographic information data such as digital maps and navigation and positioning in the development of the digital economy, such as location-based services, precision agriculture, platform economy and intelligent connected vehicles,” Wu Wenzhong is reported by China Daily to have said about the controversial release of the no-change map depicted above.

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