Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
newsinteractives.cbc.ca
Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
1–10 of 58 posts
Re: Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
#2China and North Korea appear to have a side-deal for fishing rights which violates U.N. economic sanctions against North Korea.
Re: Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
#3China and North Korea appear to have a side-deal for fishing rights which violates U.N. economic sanctions against North Korea.
I think UN should have a vote about it to decide on the panelty.
Oh wait, it was veto'ed again.
UN like a League of Nations is rather a sad joke (well, apart from peace keeping missions).
Re: Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
#4[deleted]
Re: Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
#5China and North Korea appear to have a side-deal for fishing rights which violates U.N. economic sanctions against North Korea.
I think UN should have a vote about it to decide on the panelty. Oh wait, it was veto'ed again. UN like a League of Nations is rather a sad joke (well, apart from peace keeping missions).
>UN like a League of Nations is rather a sad joke
Well, the UN ultimately mostly reflects actual geopolitical reality. It's not actually a world government, there is no world government. It has the power nation-states choose to give it. The countries that wield vetoes? They also generally wield real "vetoes" IRL, ie., they've got nukes/massive militaries/economies. The formal legal veto they have in the UN merely reflects that if there was no UN, they'd have options on things they didn't like regardless. A basic point of the UN was to try to prevent WW3, and in that respect it did pretty well. For all the ideals, a lot of the core parts of it are pretty pragmatic about the limitations embodied by definition in anything "international". It seeks consensus and to avoid hot conflicts, and the former is pretty important to avoiding the latter.
Obviously it's not entirely without power of its own, particularly various kinds of soft power. But that soft power has sharp limits without hard power backing it, which is a very sticky wicket in most scenarios that make the news.
Re: Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think UN should have a vote about it to decide on the panelty. Oh wait, it was veto'ed again. UN like a League of Nations is rather a sad joke (well, apart from peace keeping missions).
> UN like a League of Nations is rather a sad joke Well, the UN ultimately mostly reflects actual geopolitical reality. It's not actually a world government, there is no world government. It has the power nation-states choose to give it. The countries that wield vetoes? They also generally wield real "vetoes" IRL, ie., they've got nukes/massive militaries/economies. The formal legal veto they have in the UN merely re…
Very well put. It's one of the things I decry often when talking about european politics.
If Europe wants to be taken seriously, it can't just be the French having a medium sized stick to back their soft power.
Re: Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
#7I know this article is about the waters off Korea, but I noticed a similar thing flying over the South China Sea, in particular the Tokyo-Bangkok route.
Flying late at night over the SCS, and then peering out the window from 40k ft, you see endless lights - thousands and thousands of them. At first I thought I was over land, but then checked the map. The next trip I noticed the same thing, and then the same. It was literally tens of thousands of these fishing trawlers, stretching as far as the eye can see. Presumably all Chinese, and also presumably present not just to trawl for seafood, but to establish facts on the sea. It was truly frightening and shocking.
Re: Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
> UN like a League of Nations is rather a sad joke Well, the UN ultimately mostly reflects actual geopolitical reality. It's not actually a world government, there is no world government. It has the power nation-states choose to give it. The countries that wield vetoes? They also generally wield real "vetoes" IRL, ie., they've got nukes/massive militaries/economies. The formal legal veto they have in the UN merely re…
Very well put. It's one of the things I decry often when talking about european politics. If Europe wants to be taken seriously, it can't just be the French having a medium sized stick to back their soft power.
Europe invests 1%-2% in their military.
By comparison, Russia invests 5%-6%, but it's GDP is similar to Italy, i'd claim the "stick" ( if required) is a bit larger than you might expect :)
After all, it's mostly a numbers game.
Re: Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
#9I know this article is about the waters off Korea, but I noticed a similar thing flying over the South China Sea, in particular the Tokyo-Bangkok route. Flying late at night over the SCS, and then peering out the window from 40k ft, you see endless lights - thousands and thousands of them. At first I thought I was over land, but then checked the map. The next trip I noticed the same thing, and then the same. It was l…
So much light that it can be seen from space! [0]
[0] https://qz.com/1278321/an-image-from-space-reveals-the-fishi...
Re: Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet
#10I know this article is about the waters off Korea, but I noticed a similar thing flying over the South China Sea, in particular the Tokyo-Bangkok route. Flying late at night over the SCS, and then peering out the window from 40k ft, you see endless lights - thousands and thousands of them. At first I thought I was over land, but then checked the map. The next trip I noticed the same thing, and then the same. It was l…
I'm not expert on air routes but Bangkok to Tokyo sounds like it would go over the North part of the South China Sea, near Hainan then along the coast of China. So not really where the flashpoints are.
Not sure what would be frightening and shocking apart perhaps from the potential overfishing, which is unfortunately widespread worldwide.
I'm sure that Vietnam, especially, and other neighbouring countries also have extensive fishing fleets in the South China Sea at large.