Mexico

South China Sea

Kaleb Breton
4/8/16
The South China Sea, a rich natural reserve of fishing, with the possibility of thousands
of crude oil and natural gas rigs. This area located around the Spratly Islands, wedged between
Vietnam, China, Brunal, and the Philippines. The waters in this area are some the most disputed
in the world. After World War Two and allied forces occupied Japan, the Spratly Islands that
Japan had claimed, and the surrounding waters were distributed to the surrounding countries,
however many countries claims contradicted each other in these exclusive Economical zones. In
the roughly 1.4 million square miles of ocean that has an estimated 7 billion barrels of oil and
900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas more than fifty percent of the world oil tankers shipments
travel through this region, with this region being so valuable many tensions have risen in the
neighboring areas.
Mexico, has recently push to become more integrated in the world economy, pushing for
a heavy increase in exporting goods. The main target of this economics growth has been to create
free trade pacts with countries in asia, a market almost exclusively untouched by mexico. With
Mexico's primary exports being crude petroleum, heavy machinery, and electrical components.
Mexico exports seventy one percent of it produces to the United States of America, making it
extremely important to support the vast amount of American Naval presence in the area. While
still trying to secure trade pacts/routes to the philippines and Indonesia, and boosting their export
capabilities for more lucrative trade. Mexico has more than 5 existing free trade pacts with

australia, with trade routes already in place, that could be expanded upwards to reach the
surrounding countries.
Since 1995 the United States of America, has shown increasing interest in the disputes
over this area. The interests of the U.S and its allies is to ensure freedom of naval passage, and
to respect international principles. The U.S, to ensure that these concerns are met, has sent a
multitude of naval vessels to this region. The mission of this increased naval presence is to act as
a force to stop conflict between the involved countries, and as a means of surveillance. This is to
ensure that, the involved parties to not break any international policies. China during this time
has decreased the number of vietnamese fishing ships during this time. Opting for a more
moderate approach to the situation, by creating more legal and historical arguments to gain
economic control of the nine dash line.
Mexico proposes a plan to ensure proper division of the south china sea to the countries
involved. Firstly, Mexico pushes for a further increase of US Naval forces in the area particularly
around and in the nine dash line. The second is for funds to be dispersed to the Philippines,
Brunei, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. These funds should only be used for bolstering naval
forces, and defence budgets of these countries, so that they to can become a force in both
securing their own exclusive economic zone but to also ensure the safe passage for all shipping
vessels in the area. Mexico also pushes for the U.S. to defend Vietnams claims of the Paracel
Islands and the Philippines claims to the Pratas Islands.

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