ASSESSMENTS

Fish: The Overlooked Destabilizer in the South China Sea

undefined and Director, Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE
Rodger Baker
Director, Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE, Stratfor
undefined and Asia-Pacific Analyst
Evan Rees
Asia-Pacific Analyst, Stratfor
undefined and Director of Analytic Client Solutions
Amelia Harnagel
Director of Analytic Client Solutions, Stratfor

Feb 12, 2016 | 09:30 GMT

China's fishing fleet has expanded to match its growing appetite for seafood to feed its population and its export markets. Despite the region's focus on minerals and oil, fish are a more important factor in the disputes in the South China Sea.
China's fishing fleet has expanded to match its growing appetite for seafood to feed its population and its export markets. Despite the region's focus on minerals and oil, fish are a more important factor in the disputes in the South China Sea.

(ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

China is pushing outward. The country has made steady moves to reclaim its role as the pre-eminent power in the Pacific Rim. This expansion, however, differs from those made at any time in its history, because it is aimed at the contentious and crowded seas in South Asia. Conflict over the region's fishing grounds, not its oil and mineral resources, has proved more frequent, more volatile and less controllable by the various regional governments....

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