Danger for Australia !

 The United  Nations law of the sea grants an exclusive economic zone where the borders of a country meet the ocean, and once again that is in dispute in the South China sea. Specifically it is the area around Scarborough Reef  that is suffering armed aggression.

China has claimed sovereignty over the entire South China sea on the basis of an old map.  This claim was subjected to an enquiry by the world body - and rejected.  Unfortunately, China has seen fit to ignore the ruling of what the rest of the world acknowledges as the " Umpires Decision " and has blatantly created islands from a number of rocky outcrops and fortified them into naval and air bases.

Scarborough Reef is part of the Philippines economic zone and its fishing boats have got good and reliable catches there for centuries.  Philippine fishing boats are now being harassed by a vast flotilla of Chinese boats, many of which are armed and supported by Chinese naval vessels.

China is claiming the South China sea as its own exclusive fishing ground despite a number of surrounding countries having a claim on their territorial waters.  The South China sea is an international waterway and serves as a route for the world of commerce.  It is a vital connection, serving both the world export and import trade.

The Philippine fishing fleet consists of small boats often manned by family groups and they suffer a disadvantage against the more numerous and bigger Chinese fleet.  Many of the Chinese boats are armed and are threatening to fire on the  Philippine fishermen unless they leave the area.

So far, China has made no move to interfere with commercial traffic through the South China sea but it does challenge naval ships and particularly units of the United States navy.  There have been numerous incidents of near collisions and Chinese military aircraft have flown close to ships and planes passing through the area.

The Philippines is a poor country and its defence force could not sustain a fire fight with the Chinese navy. It seems inevitable that eventually there will be a serious incident between USS ships passing through the area and Chinese aggression and the outcome of that will affect Australia.  The bulk of both our export and import trade passes through the South China sea.

In particular, we are vulnerable to any disruption of tanker traffic because our oil refineries have been closing  in favour of the lower cost of the big refineries in Asia.  We are an oil producing country but both our transport and defence capacity would be harmed if military action stopped that traffic flow which we could not replace internally.

The fact that a United Nations ruling is being ignored and a neighbour is under threat is a clear warning that this flash point is hotting up !