Daily Archives: 29 October 2015

Sovereignty

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Regarding the People’s Republic of China’s attempted seizure of the East, and in particular, the South China Sea and the associated PRC seizure of seabed minerals, below the seabed oil and gas deposits, and surface fishing rights,

The US said it doesn’t take a position on sovereignty over the South China Sea but insists on freedom of navigation and overflight. About 30 percent of global trade passes through the South China Sea, which also has rich fishing grounds and a potential wealth of undersea mineral deposits.

We need to take a position on sovereignty over the South China Sea, exactly for sovereignty, that international trade, those fishing rights, and those minerals and oil and gas deposits.

We say we’re for freedom of the seas, but that begins with recognition of what are international waters and what are not. The South China Sea, and the East China Sea, are international waters, not internal lakes of this or that country.

Various nations’ Exclusive Economic Zones extend far into the Seas. Various nations have far more legitimate territorial claims to a number of the islands in those Seas.

We should be working with those nations—Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, et al.—to help them resolve their disagreements over whose territory those islands are, we should be working with those nations to help them resolve their disputes over Economic Zone overlaps.

Given the PRC’s open lawlessness regarding those waters and those islands, we should be working these dispute resolutions with the explicit exclusion of the PRC in those talks.

Threats and Returns

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Poland, prior to the recently concluded elections, agreed under EU pressure to accept 4,500 Syrian refugees as its quota, even though the Polish people didn’t want that. The Law and Justice Party, a populist political party, was swept into power in those elections (the refugee item actually was a relatively minor factor in the PiS’ (the acronym for the Polish language name of the party) strong mandate), and they have said Poland will accept no refugees from “war-torn countries such as Syria.”

Eurogroup Chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem is objecting.

Dijsselbloem said that Poland should show something in return for Europe’s largesse. “And if not, we could take a part of the EU’s budget that flows to countries like Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary in the form of subsidies….”

Here are three things Poland does show in return for Europe’s largesse:

  • a growing economy, which is more than southern European countries are showing
  • respect for national sovereignty, which is more than the Know Betters of Brussels (including the Eurogroup) are showing
  • the courage to stand up to Russian threats and outright aggression, which is more than even the powers of the EU—France and Germany—are showing.