China is turning the South China Sea into a world of shit. Literally.
Figuratively, of course, China has been stirring up a shit-storm in the South China Sea for years, trying to claim the disputed territory for itself. China has laid claim to isolated reefs, atolls and sandbars, declaring them “sovereign territory” and trying to exclude everyone else from “its” waterways. Where there are no islands, China is simply making them up: dredging sand and making artificial “islands” — which are “Chinese territory”, naturally.
China’s strategy is to turn the Pacific into a Chinese lake, bullying its neighbours and excluding its greatest foe, the United States.
China is also turning the South China Sea into a literal sea of shit.
China has been accused by the Philippines of turning the disputed South China Sea into “a cesspool of faeces” with the mass discharge of raw human sewage destroying coral reefs.
Remember: this is at the same time that China is attacking Australia for supposedly “destroying” the Great Barrier Reef (a lie, of course).
Simularity, an American company, has published satellite images which appear to show the spread of algae across coral in the Spratly Islands, an archipelago of reefs and islets claimed in whole or in part by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Its report says that the algae is caused by hundreds of Chinese trawlers that cluster almost constantly around the reefs’ rich fishing grounds.
The photographs provoked a new wave of indignation among Filipinos, with politicians clamouring for action against China and its claims of sovereignty over virtually all of what Manila terms the West Philippine Sea.
China’s aggression is especially affecting nations like the Phillippines and Vietnam. Chinese ships recently rammed and sank a Vietnamese vessel. Its new fleet of vessels are designed specifically for ramming. China’s gargantuan fishing fleet is scouring the South China Sea and monstering anyone who gets in its way.
“It is not only reclaiming land … by its actions, it is also renaming it as the Waste Philippine Sea,” Ralph Recto, head of the Philippines Senate, said. “By turning reefs into toilets, two man-made things are now visible from space: the Great Wall of China on land, and the Great Wastes of China at sea.
“Even without [environmental] laws, decent human behaviour commands civilised men not to turn rich fishing grounds into a cesspool of faeces.”
Grace Poe, another senator, said: “China treating us as its toilet is a clear violation of both international and local environmental laws. This adds insult to injury. We are not the dumping site of any country, let alone by a nation laying claims on our territory.”
This is not just disgusting, it’s threatening the entire South China Sea.
The images[…]show increases in chlorophyll, a pigment that shows up as white patches in satellite photographs viewed with multispectral imaging. It is a measure of the presence of marine organisms called phytoplankton, an excess of which is deadly to marine life. They are caused by excess nutrients, such as run-off from fertiliser – or, in the Spratly Islands, where there is no agriculture, human waste from ships.
When the ships don’t move, the poop piles up,” Liz Derr told a forum organised by a Manila think tank. “The sewage from the anchored ships in the Spratlys is damaging the reefs and we can see this from space.
“Excess phytoplankton that cannot be consumed by the reef inhabitants dies off and sinks to the sea floor, where it is consumed by bacteria. These bacteria consume oxygen that would normally be available to the fish, creating a ‘dead zone’”[…]
Last year Carl Schuster, a professor at Hawaii Pacific University and a former US navy captain, said that more than 200 Chinese vessels anchored in the Spratlys discharged 200 tonnes of waste a month in a concentrated area.
The Australian
A recent study found that nearly three-quarters of plastic waste in the Atlantic ocean came from Chinese ships. China is the world’s single biggest CO2 emitter.
Plastic in the Atlantic, poo in the Pacific, pollution in the air. Thanks, China.
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD