Russia, China block move for new Antarctic marine reserves
www.straitstimes.com
The areas are home to penguins, seals, toothfish, whales and huge numbers of krill – a staple food for many species. Read more at straitstimes.com.

As usual no reasoning was provided as to why Russia and China might block such a motion, the implication being that its because they’re evil, hate nature and cute animals, and want to destroy the environment. I’m sure there must be sensible reasons why Russia and China don’t want these reserves. Are they proposed for areas which China/Russia have interest in in Antarctica which would limit their operations? What do they do down there anyway? Is the Antarctic a useful surveillance/espionage outpost? Are there nuclear weapons in Antarctica? I have no idea, I’d love if anyone can educate me a bit on Antarctic geopolitics.

  • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    141·
    2 years ago

    If the proposal comes from the collective West you can be sure there are ulterior motives and that it almost certainly at least in part is designed to in some way further the West’s strategic goals of weakening and containing Russia and China. Proposals like this need to be worked through with a fine tooth comb by experts who understand the subject and can spot where the US or its various tentacles disguised as “NGOs” are trying to insert poison pills.

    The US constantly tries to use international treaties to its advantage to cripple their competitors. At the same time they themselves almost never abide by the rules they seek to impose on others, they always find loopholes. If you ask me this is yet another instance of them trying to hide behind the pretense of environmental protection to deny Russia and China access to regions of the globe that in the future are going to be of critical strategic importance but where the US knows it cannot compete on equal terms. It is more “rules-based order” crap, where they make the rules in their interest and everyone else has to follow them.

    China and Russia, and in fact all of the global south would be wise to be very skeptical about any proposals the US and its vassals make no matter what they are about. Whether it’s environmental, nuclear, whatever. In fact until conclusively proven otherwise i would just assume it’s malicious/subversive and refuse on principle anything that any Western entity proposes, because they will never negotiate in good faith and will always seek to use your well intentioned but naive hope of reaching mutually beneficial agreements to advance their own nefarious agenda at your expense.

    • citsuah@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
      62·
      2 years ago

      hugely appreciative of this effortpost comrade. that’s pretty interesting the thing about China not being able to contribute to policing of the rule and as such not wanting to entrust this entirely to the west. while I always want to learn two sides to the story and err on the side of trusting China over the west, I guess it doesn’t always mean everything they do is defensible or the “morally correct” path as well. I’m not so dogmatic that I will refuse to acknowledge China doing something I disagree with even if I support China on the whole. Not saying that’s necessarily the case in this situation though, its too hard to say without more information available.

  • qwename@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    I have no clue either, so I started with the CCAMLR’s website, they have all the reports of meetings since 1982. However, the report for the meeting mentioned in the news (June 19-23) isn’t available yet.

    If you look through the reports from previous years, the relevant information is under the title “Spatial Management”>“Review of proposals for new MPAs”, or “Marine Protected Areas” for earlier reports. If you want to see what the representatives from each country said, search for “COUNTRY made the following statement”.

    This is a lot of material to go through, might come back to comment again if I get around to finding out why.