China denies US ship access to Taiwan Strait

[gulfcoastliberal]

Source: Nature.com

The research vessel Marcus G. Langseth will have to steer clear of the waters that separate Taiwan from mainland China, after the Chinese government denied the US seismic research vessel permission to sail in the area.

The vessel, which is investigating earthquakes and mountain-building processes in the Pacific Ocean, set sail from the port of Kaohsiung in southwest Taiwan this morning. But it will now not be able to carry out experiments within the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait that is under Chinese jurisdiction.

The vessel is part of the multi-million-dollar Taiwan Integrated Geodynamic Research (TAIGER) project, which is jointly funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and several agencies in Taiwan such as its National Science Council, Ministry of the Interior and Central Geological Survey of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

snip

The region around Taiwan is important for studying how collisions between tectonic plates give birth to mountain belts, says Francis Wu, a seismologist at Binghamton University in New York, who leads the US arm of the TAIGER project.

Read more: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090331/full/news.2009.216.html

[Barack_America]

1. On the advice of Bobby Jindal, perhaps?

After all, who needs to research natural disasters?

Or more of a China vs. Taiwan thing?

Yeah, probably that one.

[mix]

2. what a great cover for a spy ship n/t

[corruptmewithpower]

3. Spys, spys everywhere. I know some wingnuts who insist that Bill

Clinton was a "Chinese agent" and he had Chinese spys running the white house and stealing nuclear bomb designs and all kinds of techno gizmo stuff. I kinda doubt spying is as big an industry as the paranoia set thinks.

[IDFbunny]

5. They did steal the designs of thw W-88 neutron bomb

but it was on GHWBs' watch.

[dysfunctional press]

4. if it were a spy ship, wouldn't the chinese just let it in, and then seize it...?

and study it...? like they did with the spy plane that cheneyco gave to china in their first term.

[ohio2007]

6. rights of innocent passage

the Chinese don't want them seeing the ocean floor imo

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. The Chinese zone does not over ride the Taiwanese Zone.

The economic zone does not preclude innocent passage.