US: China new sea rules 'provocative'

The US has described new Chinese rules on fishing access to disputed areas of the South China Sea as "provocative and potentially dangerous".

Regulations approved by Hainan province requiring foreign fishing vessels to ask for permission to enter its waters took effect on 1 January.

China claims a U-shaped swathe of the South China Sea, which it puts under the authority of Hainan province.

This swathe overlaps areas also claimed by several South East Asian nations.

The move comes with tensions already high over China's recent establishment of an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) that covers East China Sea islands claimed and controlled by Japan, and a rock claimed by South Korea.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25666849

Ouch. There is no letting up from the Chinese...

I was wondering when this would happen.

Presumably this will include the hydrocarbons within that zone of which there is estimated to be a lot, to say the least.

Their attitude is at best annoying and at worst worrying.

Another, older, thread on the South China Sea, here:

http://www.british-filipino.com/sho...w-York-Times-today-quot-shark-and-minnow-quot

What ultimately happens depends on whether one or more of these countries resist or whether everyone allows China to get away with these moves. Hard to predict the outcome.

...Or if they can't defend themselves it becomes a collective of nations to make them see sense

That too. Exactly.

The chances of ASEAN turnimg itself into an EU, let alone a NATO, are vanishingly small.