Pacific Powder Keg: US Deploys More Ships Raising Stakes in South China Sea
SputnikNews.com
16.06.2016
The Obama administration continues its drift towards World War III through an openly confrontational policy towards Beijing in the South China Sea, harkening memories of the ‘Guns of August.’
On Thursday, US Navy officials speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed Washington’s plans to dispatch more surface ships to bolster the Third Fleet’s deployment in the South China Sea. The movement raises the stakes in America’s provocative containment strategy against Beijing.
Beijing claims sovereignty over much of the South China Sea, a valuable waterway through which roughly 1/3 of the world’s goods are shipped. The waters also contain one of the world’s largest oil and natural gas deposits, with 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The United States has repeatedly intervened on behalf of several other regional countries, including Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Philippines, who hold competing claims. President Obama has called on Xi Jinping to submit to a process laid out in the Law of the Sea Treaty, a treaty Washington is not a signatory to and under which legal experts believe China has an undeniable claim.
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