There may be tensions between the countries in the Pacific region with China due to their territorial grab in the South China Sea, but those tensions are being put aside in order to work together during the 2016 RIMPAC exercise kicking off in Hawaii:
U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift speaks to reporters Tuesday, July 5, 2016, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, for the kickoff of the Rim of the Pacific exercise in Hawaii and California. WYATT OLSON/STARS AND STRIPES
The hot topic for the Rim of the Pacific remains unchanged from the last version of the maritime exercise in 2014: China.
This marks the second time China has been a full participant in RIMPAC, bringing five ships compared with two in 2014, and the country will play a much larger role.
During a Tuesday news conference kicking off the six-week exercise — the largest so far — Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift was flanked by top commanders from many of the 26 participating nations. Beside him was Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, who is heading the exercise’s combined task force.
Swift’s opening remarks didn’t mention China by name, but his first talking point echoed repeated calls by U.S. civilian and military officials to maintain the U.S.-led status quo in the Pacific region in response to ever-greater Chinese military might.
“[RIMPAC] brings together 26 nations from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Oceania,” Swift said. “This is what the international maritime community does in ensuring the norms, standards, rules and laws that have provided the great stability and security — the foundation for prosperity — that we’ve all enjoyed over the last 70 years.”
The biennial exercise is “a recurring answer to the divisive angst and tensions that put security and stability at risk in this region,” he said. [Stars & Stripes]
This is what the Chinese Navy will be training with the US on during RIMPAC:
As it did in 2014, China sent the hospital ship Peace Ark, along with the guided missile destroy Xian, guided-missile frigate Hengshui, fleet oiler Gaoyouhui and the submarine logistics vessel Changxingdao.
China will participate in a new submarine rescue scenario, among other drills.
“For any country that has submarines, submarine rescue is very important,” Tyson told reporters. “I think it’s great we’re bringing these submarine rescue capabilities together so that we understand what is available in case we have an emergency with a submarine. There is a global system that will respond if any of us were to have an emergency with a submarine.”
You can read more at the link, but something of interests is that all surface vessels during the exercise are required to “Go Green” and use biofuels to power their ships.
Kim Jong-un is not only using the Chinese fishing boats as part of a asymmetric warfare strategy, but he is also making money at the expense of food for his own people:
The cash-strapped Pyongyang regime, under heavy international sanctions in 2016, sold $30 million worth of fishing rights to more than a 1,000 Chinese vessels, The Korea Herald reported Friday.
The number of licenses issued has tripled from previous years, said Lee Wan-young, a South Korean lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri party, after a meeting with the National Intelligence Service.
“North Korean people, too, are unhappy because it has shrunk the catch and caused common complaints with their southern counterparts regarding worsening environmental damage such as from fuel oil sludge at sea,” Lee said. [UPI]
You can read more at the link, but so much for China supposedly aggressively applying financial sanctions on North Korea.
What gets me is that the ROK authorities did not jail this Chinese fisherman, but instead just booked him and let him go:
This photo taken on June 24, 2016, shows a Chinese fishing boat at a port in Incheon, west of Seoul. The Coast Guard seized the boat the previous day that allegedly operated illegally near the inter-Korean maritime border. (Yonhap
The captain of a Chinese fishing boat was arrested on Friday over allegedly operating near the inter-Korean maritime border and using an illegal drug, the South Korean Coast Guard said.
Coast guard officers found methamphetamine inside the boat that they seized in waters off Socheong Island in Incheon, west of Seoul, the previous day.
On Thursday, they confiscated 0.12 gram of the drug and an inhaler from the ship’s pilothouse after taking it to a coast guard station in Incheon. During an investigation into the captain, whose name was withheld, the 48-year-old man confessed that he had bought them shortly before the boat left the port of Donggang in China’s Liaoning Province around 5 p.m. on June 9, they said.
The captain, who purchased the drug and the inhaler from an acquaintance for 240 yuan and 20 yuan respectively, is suspected of inhaling the stimulant three times when the boat sailed near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the inter-Korean de facto western maritime border, this month.
He has also administered the drug about 10 times in China since last year, they said. “I used the drug in secret at the pilothouse to beat fatigue,” he was quoted as saying. He tested positive in a urine test for the drug.
The Coast Guard plans to book the Chinese man without physical detention on charges of suspected violation of the illegal fishing control law concerning South Korea’s exclusive economic zone. In addition, it will book him on suspicion of violating the drug control law. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I maintain that the ROK should jail these guys and auction off their boats. This would be needed to deterrent to stop the illegal fishing.
The LA Times has a good article on how the illegal Chinese fishing boats are not only destroying the local economy of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, but also destroying the entire ecosystem that supports the blue crab population:
Chinese fishing boats operate off the northern coast of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island on June 12, 2016. (Steven Borowiec / For The Times)
The Chinese vessels have been driven to the South Korean fishing grounds by declining stocks in their home waters. The result has been a dramatic drop-off in blue crab catches, leading local fishermen to fear for their futures. (……….)
Park said the fishermen are working longer hours and coming home with less. “Pretty soon, there will be nothing left,” said Park, 56, dressed in a salt-stained black tracksuit and chain-smoking cigarettes. (………..)
Park worries that the Chinese boats are doing permanent damage to the ecosystem he relies on, saying they use a method called bull trawling, which is illegal in South Korea. Bull trawling entails dredging up everything in the ship’s path and damages the seabed. “They take everything,” Park said. “Even the babies.” [LA Times]
You can read the rest of the article at the link, but it is clear the ROK authorities need to do more to stop these illegal Chinese fishing boats. I am also wonder where are the Green Peace and Sea Shepherd activists at? Illegal Chinese fishing boats destroying an entire ecosystem seems like something they would be protesting.
The Manseok pier in South Korea’s western port city of Incheon is jam-packed with Chinese fishing boats on June 14, 2016. All the ships have been seized by the South Korean Coast Guard while illegally catching fish in the country’s territorial waters near the inter-Korean sea border in the West Sea. Illegal fishing by Chinese fishermen is a years-long troublesome issue in the country as it has severely damaged the livelihood of South Korean fishermen. (Yonhap)
ROK Drop favorite Andrei Lankov has an opinion piece in the Korea Times that explains how China’s supposed harsh line with North Korea was merely a short term fluctuation and things are back to normal between the two countries:
For a brief while, South Korean diplomats were in a rather celebratory mood: it looked like China, for a change, had joined the ROK and the U.S. in their efforts to subject North Korea to the toughest sanctions ever. Indeed, in early March the Chinese representative in the U.N. Security Council voted for Resolution 2270 which introduced such measures, and for a while the united front looked like a reality.
Frankly, for yours truly, it was a surprise: the harsh position Beijing had seemingly committed itself to was unprecedented, and China’s switch happened quite suddenly. However, now it seems that this change was merely a short-term fluctuation.
There are many signs of a warming of relations between China and North Korea. In early June, Ri Su-yong, the former North Korean foreign minister who currently is the Korean Workers’ Party vice-chairman responsible for foreign relations, visited Beijing. It is the first time since 2013 that a North Korean official of such high rank has appeared in the Chinese capital. Among other things, Ri was granted an audience with President Xi Jinping. It lasted merely 20 minutes and therefore was, first and foremost, a formality, but it still had much symbolic meaning. It is equally important that the Chinese media devoted much space to describing the visit.
Simultaneously, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman expressed dissatisfaction with the new U.S. policy initiative ― unilateral sanctions, targeting banks that deal with North Korea. On the other hand, the U.S. authorities subpoenaed Huawei, a massive Chinese telecommunication company, for its alleged deals with North Korea. There is also a growing body of evidence that China is not being as strict with sanctions’ enforcement as many had hoped for.
There is nothing surprising about all this. Like it or not, when it comes to the Korean Peninsula, Chinese interests are seriously different from those of the United States. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but like I have always said China is never going to take a position that would risk the stability of the Kim regime. As bad as the regime is, to the Chinese government it is better than the alternative of regime collapse and the unification of the peninsula under South Korean rule backed with US troops.
