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    south china sea

    U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping

    Can the US and China Keep the Peace in 2024?

    Given the dangers in Taiwan and the South China Sea, Presidents Biden and Xi will have to exercise extreme patience and prudence to prevent the ignition of a full-blown crisis next year.

    Michael T. Klare
    Dec 24, 2023

    This hasn’t exactly been a year of good news when it comes to our war-torn, beleaguered planet, but on November 15, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping took one small step back from the precipice. Until they talked in a mansion near San Francisco, it seemed as if their countries were locked in a downward spiral of taunts and provocations that might, many experts feared, result in a full-blown crisis, even a war—even, god save us all, the world’s first nuclear war. Thanks to that encounter, though, such dangers appear to have receded. Still, the looming question facing both countries is whether that retreat from disaster—what the Chinese are now calling the “San Francisco vision”—will last through 2024.

    Prior to the summit, there seemed few discernible obstacles to some kind of trainwreck, whether a complete breakdown in relations, a disastrous trade war, or even a military clash over Taiwan or contested islands in the South China Sea. Beginning with last February’s Chinese balloon incident and continuing with a series of bitter trade disputes and recurring naval and air incidents over the summer and fall, events seemed to be leading with a certain grim inevitability toward some sort of catastrophe. After one such incident last spring, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman warned that “the smallest misstep by either side could ignite a U.S.-China war that would make Ukraine look like a neighborhood dust-up.”

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    Opinion
    war & peace
    Soldiers take position on a beach.

    The Race to the Bottom in the South China Sea

    Another set of natural resources, arguably more crucial to the economic future of the global superpowers, could be adding to the growing territorial furor over who possesses the goods in that body of water.

    Joshua Frank
    Sep 12, 2023

    It’s an ocean of conflict and ecological decline. Despite its vast size—1.3 million square miles—the South China Sea has become a microcosm of the geopolitical tensions between East and West, where territorial struggles over abundant natural resources may one day lead to environmental collapse.

    While the threat of a devastating military conflict between China and the United States in the region still looms, the South China Sea has already experienced irreparable damage. Decades of over-harvesting have, for instance, had a disastrous impact on that sea’s once-flourishing fish. The tuna, mackerel, and shark populations have fallen to 50% of their 1960s levels. Biologically critical coral reef atolls, struggling to survive rising ocean temperatures, are also being buried under sand and silt as the Chinese military lays claim to and builds on the disputed Spratly Islands, an archipelago of 14 small isles and 113 reefs in that sea. Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam have also laid claim to many of the same islands.

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    Opinion
    deep-sea mining
    US Draws Ire with Dispatch of 'Small Armada' into South China Sea

    US Draws Ire with Dispatch of 'Small Armada' into South China Sea

    Critics warn that continued military build-up in East Asia could lead to war between global powers

    Nika Knight Beauchamp
    Mar 04, 2016

    On Thursday, the United States' globe-spanning military dispatched a "small armada" into the South China Sea, reported the Navy Times, in the latest show of American force in the contested territory since the widely condemned patrol of a Navy destroyer within Chinese waters last October.

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