Former US Submarine Captain Sounds Alarm Over China's Deep Sea Miners
Story by Aadil Brar • 21h
A former U.S. submariner has raised the alarm over China's deep-sea mining activity geared towards militarizing the ocean.
The concerns come as Beijing increasingly defines the rules of engagement on the high seas as a signatory of the United Nations' Law of the Sea treaty. To date, 168 countries in total have ratified the treaty, thereby ensuring their stake in the potentially lucrative extraction of trillions of dollars worth of minerals from the ocean floor, according to CBS.
However, the United States stands as a notable outlier, having not ratified the treaty due to opposition from a contingent of Republican Senators who argue that it would compromise American sovereignty and power.
"If you're going to find submarines in the ocean, you need to know what the bottom looks like. You need to know what the temperature is. You need to know what the salinity is. If China is using civilian vessels to sort of on the sly do those surveys, then that improves, could improve, their ability to find U.S. and Allied submarines over time as they better understand that undersea environment," Tom Shugart, former U.S. submariner and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Center for a New American Security told CBS weekly show 60 Minutes.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/former-us-submarine-captain-sounds-alarm-over-china-s-deep-sea-miners/ar-BB1kCJLw?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=eed258533c2347a0a8ad5172d5ba89c0&ei=17
