Theme 1 - Seas, Oceans at the core of Globalization Notes

Theme 1 - Seas, Oceans at the core of Globalization (13-15 hours – 30%) (ppt 1 - slide 1)

Part 1: Global Scale (12 hours)

Possible Case Studies slide 2

· Arab-Persian Gulf: an area at the heart of contemporary issues.

· South China Sea: territorial competition, economic stakes and freedom of movement.

· Indian Ocean: regional rivalries and international cooperation.

· Strait of Malacca: a major and strategic crossing point.

· The Arctic: exploitation of resources, new trade routes and geopolitical stakes

Key Questions slide 3

1. Why are maritime spaces (seas & oceans) critically important to globalization?

2. How are seas and oceans (maritime spaces) claimed by different states in need of protection, and territories with open circulation (freedom of the seas)?

3. Why are some territories on the margins of globalization, based on their relation to maritime spaces?

4. How can countries overcome such marginalization?

5. What transformations are underway in access to and regulation of maritime spaces?

6. What rivalries or conflicts are emerging in maritime spaces?

Key Terms slide 4

Maritime Spaces ● Exclusive Economic Zones ● UN Convention Law of the Seas ● Flags of Convenience ● Piracy ● Containerization ● Choke points: canals and straits

Learning Objectives slide 5

❖ Identify the main maritime routes and the major stakes

❖ Evaluate the importance of maritime spaces in globalization.

❖ Analyze why access to the sea affects territories unequally.

❖ Analyze how conflicting interests in maritime spaces leads to tensions between states.

❖ Analyze and provide examples of geopolitical issues associated with maritime spaces

❖ Evaluate the economic, diplomatic and military importance of maritime spaces for France and the United States respectively.

Possible KEY QUESTION as for an essay:

Analyze how the oceans and seas are at the center of the globalization process today

INTRODUCTION: Brainstorming about globalization, seas and oceans around the world slide 6

Activity #1: Review the key terminology relevant to a discussion about globalization, including actors, productive spaces, territories

Activity #2: Reviewing the key knowledge about names and locations of key seas and oceans. slides 7-8

Definition of globalization

The process by which people, governments or companies previously in some separated parts of the world begin to be interconnected on a global scale. They are now sharing their ideas and their activities (economic, cultural, political activities) thanks to a rapid increase in cross-border economic, social, cultural, technological exchanges under conditions of capitalism.

Globalization increases the interaction and integration between countries and between people linking people together

History of a concept, of a process

Globalization has been taking place for hundreds of years but has speeded up enormously over the last half-century. The word globalization itself appears in Merriam Webster's New International Dictionary in 1961 and its use became widespread in the end of the eighties after the downfall of the iron curtain.

Three major waves of globalization: general knowledge

The first era of globalization: Discovery of America in the 15^th century and the rise of global trade. slides 9-11

1492 was a major change in trade and culture with the European discovery of America. Establishment of a European control over huge territories.

The second era of globalization: Industrial revolution and the colonization process. slide 12

Between 1850 and 1914, the industrializing countries of Europe have known a period of profound economic growth. The institution of the international gold standard set the first foundation for a global monetary system and the first free trade agreements were signed at the time, mainly under the British influence. slide 13

Creation of trade connections with their colonies: raw materials, organization of supply lines so they could become manufacturers. Emergence of a core (London) and of peripheries (the British Empire/Commonwealth)

The second wave of globalization ended dramatically with the First World War and 1929: isolationism and nationalism raised economical tariffs to protect the national economy. The World became disconnected.

THIRD ONE = current one (from 1945 to now), with an acceleration of the global interdependence after 1989-1991 and the fall of the Berlin Wall/ implosion of the USSR. slide 14

- After WWII

Its origin might be traced back to the end of WWII, when the Trade Negotiation Rounds (a round is a set of negotiations between countries) began to remove restrictions on trade between developed countries.

During the GATT (= General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade) rounds which started in 1948 (replaced by the WTO in 1995), the countries which signed the agreements began progressively to reduce their tariffs. Tariffs had been divided by 7 in 40 years.

The Bretton-Woods agreement, signed in the US in July 1944, is the second important treaty which gave birth to a new global monetary system between the industrial states. The goal of each state was to maintain the exchange rates of its currency at a fixed value (based on gold), in order to insure stability in the world economy.

The World Bank was created at the time to help countries incapable of maintaining their currency. This system ended in 1971 after the United States had left it (Nixon Shock) Since 1989 (Progressive disappearance of a bipolar World): huge increase of globalization.

CCL: Globalization is a geo-political and geo-economic concept because it’s a world-system (système-monde) linking most of the territories around the world. It was created by the most powerful states and it indicates the relations and tensions between countries around the world: multipolar world today. It is mostly based on the use, the control and the appropriation of the oceans and seas around the world.

Definition of seas and oceans

The maritime areas represent a huge part of the world (71% of the world area = 361M square km)

An ocean is a continuous body of saltwater. The oceans and their marginal seas cover nearly 71 percent of Earth’s surface. The exposed land occupies the remaining 29 percent of the planetary surface. slide 15

What's the difference between an ocean and a sea? slide 16

In terms of geography, seas are smaller than oceans and seas are usually located where the land and ocean meet. Typically, seas are partially enclosed by land.

As an example, the Indian Ocean is an open body of water. The two areas of water that are partially enclosed by land are named the Red Sea and the Oman Sea.

The majority of the Earth’s water is stored in its oceans, seas, and bays which make up 96.5% of the 1.36 billion tons of water.

1. The maritimization of the economies at the heart of the globalization process because of the resources of the oceans and of the seas, and the material and immaterial flows slide 17

KEY QUESTION: Why are maritime spaces (seas & oceans) critically important to globalization?

1.1. Seas and oceans provide massive amounts of natural resources

Important fishing resources, natural and mineral resources: below the seabed are located between 1/3 of the gas resources and ¼ of the oil resources. slide 18

1.1.1. Offshore oil and gas and other mineral resources slide 19

Offshore oil and gas are now accessible thanks to the improvement of the offshore drilling techniques slide 20. Offshore drilling is a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled below the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently extract petroleum which lies in rock formations beneath the seabed.

Today, there are almost 4,000 production facilities on the Continental Shelf. Offshore activities take place in waters of more than half the nations on earth. In 2000, approximately 30% of world oil and gas production came from offshore, mainly from the Gulf of Mexico and of Guinea and in the South China Sea. Slides 21-22

The three largest offshore oil fields are located in the Persian Gulf, off the coasts of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

But offshore drilling still represents some major ecological risks, most notably oil spills from oil tankers or pipelines transporting oil from the platform to onshore facilities, and from leaks and accidents on the platform. (cf. the end of the lesson) slide 23

The ocean floors are also mined to find resources such as diamonds, gold, silver, metal ores like manganese nodules and gravel mines. Metal compounds, gravels, sands and gas hydrates are also mined in the ocean. Sands and gravel are often mined in the United States and are used to protect beaches and reduce the effects of erosion.

Mining the ocean can be devastating to the natural ecosystems. Dredging of any kind pulls up the ocean floor resulting in widespread destruction of marine animal habitats, as well as wiping out vast numbers of fishes and invertebrates. slide 24

1.1.2. Fishing, a very old activity creating millions of jobs and providing food resources around the world slide 25

Fishing is one of the oldest employment of humankind. In the early 21^st century about 250 million people were directly employed by the commercial fishing industry, and an estimated one billion people depended on fish as their primary source of animal protein.

Fishing technology continued to develop throughout history, employing improved and larger ships, and more sophisticated fishing equipment slide 26. The overall productivity per fisherman (around 2.3 tons per year) around the world does not say a lot about the massive inequalities between small-scale/traditional/local/artisanal fisheries along the coasts with small or middle-size vessels, little technical equipment, and little or no mechanization by local fishermen to feed the local population and markets, and industrial/commercial fishing.

Commercial/industrial fishing is now carried on in all types of waters, in all parts of the world, except where impeded by depth or dangerous currents or prohibited by law. Commercial fishing is done on a large scale with powerful deep-sea vessels and sophisticated mechanical equipment similar to that of other modern industrial enterprises where fishes are captured, transformed and ready to be exported over a long distance.

Fishing takes place all around the world slide 27, from the Aleutian Islands, near the Arctic Sea to the small islands in the Pacific. The most important fishing grounds are mainly located in the Pacific (largest ocean), then the Atlantic and then the Indian Ocean:

· the North-West Pacific Region stretching from the Bering Sea to East China Sea and the world's largest as well as greatest fishing ground

· The North East Atlantic and adjacent region of the Arctic stretching from Iceland to Mediterranean shores that covered some of the European countries like Norway, Denmark, Spain, Iceland and the United Kingdom.

· The South East Pacific, stretching from the Pacific Coast of South America that includes Panama to Cape Horn. The northward flowing Peru Current provides an ideal environment for the anchovy culture.

The main fishing powers are China, Indonesia, India, USA, Russia, Peru and Vietnam. China accounts for 30% of world fish production and 60% of world’s aquaculture production slide 28 (first part). Aquaculture accounts for two-thirds of China’s fish production. These countries have a very intensive fishing practice along the European, Chinese and Chilean coasts.

Seas and oceans provide a massive amount of food to many countries around the Earth. Total fish production in 2016 reached an all-time high of 171M tons with aquaculture representing 47% of the total. To compare, in 2000, 86 million tons of fish were captured.

In fact, about 12% of fish are used for other purposes than feeding human beings such as fishmeal to feed fish grown in captivity.

How much fish is consumed worldwide? slide 28 (second part)

World per capita fish consumption has been increasing steadily, from an average of 9.9 kg in the 1960s to 16.4 kg in 2005 and 20.2 kg in 2015. Development in fish production and consumption has been driven by population growth, urbanization, increasing income and improved distribution channels. China has accounted for most of the world's growth.

This rising demand could easily lead to overfishing (cf. end of the lesson) slide 29

1.1.3. Renewable energy: wind, ocean, tide… slide 30

The oceans can also be used to provide renewable energy because wind, waves and currents together contain 300 times more energy than humans are currently consuming.

About 40 offshore wind energy projects have so far been implemented worldwide, most of them in the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden. slide 31

One of the largest offshore wind farms slide 32, Anholt Offshore Wind Farm, consisting of more than one hundred offshore wind turbines, is located in the Baltic Sea between Denmark and Sweden. Floating offshore concepts are also being developed for even deeper waters. The world’s first floating wind energy plant was recently constructed off the coast of Norway by a Norwegian-German consortium.

All the largest offshore wind farms are currently in northern Europe, especially in the United Kingdom and Germany, which together account for over two-thirds of the total offshore wind power installed worldwide.

In France, the Saint-Nazaire wind farm is currently being constructed about 12-20 km offshore in 12 to 25 meters water depth. The power plant is scheduled to go live in 2022. slide 33

The cost of offshore wind power has historically been higher than that of onshore wind generation, but costs have been decreasing rapidly in recent years. Offshore wind power in Europe has been price-competitive with conventional power sources since 2017. Offshore wind generation grew at over 30 percent per year in the 2010s. As of 2020, offshore wind power has become a significant part of northern Europe power generation, though it remained less than 1 percent of overall world electricity generation.

Renewable energy can also be created from waves or from the tide. The oldest power plants designed to harness ocean energy is La Rance tidal power station near St. Malo in France, which was built in the 1960s. For many years it was the largest of its kind. slide 34

The United Kingdom considered building a major tidal power station at the estuary of the River Severn between England and Wales, but the project failed to convince the MPs. The location could have supplied enough energy to meet 7% of the United Kingdom’s entire power needs. However, critics feared that the construction of the dams could devastate vital nature reserves and bird sanctuaries. The environmental damage could be substantial.

slide 35 The Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station, located in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, is the world's largest tidal power installation.

1.2. Material and immaterial flows of goods and data across the seas and oceans, at the core of the globalization process slide 36

1.2.1. Shipping goods and containers to link forelands and hinterlands around the world: material flows

The word “shipping” refers to the activity of moving cargo with ships in between seaports.

slide 37 The various types of ships include tankers, crude oil ships, product ships, chemical ships, bulk carriers, cable layers, general cargo ships, offshore supply vessels, ferries, gas and car carriers, tugboats, barges and dredgers.

Around the world are currently travelling about 3,000 oil tankers (pétrolier), 15,000 gas carrier (méthanier), 4,700 containerships (porte-conteneurs). According to the International Chamber of Shipping, there are more than 50,000 merchant ships operating in the oceans currently.

Boats represent the vast majority of the transport between continents: 80% of the intercontinental transportation of goods, with a massive increase of the exchange of manufactured goods.

Activity #3: using the picture of the containership at port, explain the main changes brought by the containerization and its impacts on the world trade slide 38

Revolution in the transports by sea with the container ships slide 39

Global ocean trade has been made efficient thanks to the invention of the containers loaded into container ships.

Container shipping is a highly efficient method of transporting goods. The container has made it possible for large ships to be designed to transport huge quantities of material, increasing global trade dramatically. slide 40

Container ports such as Singapore, Rotterdam or Long Beach, CA are specially designed to load and unload the containers quickly and efficiently. This makes the import and export of goods affordable for manufacturers and traders. Before the invention of container shipping, goods were unpacked and loaded onto the ships at the port, taking up much more time, manpower and money. slide 41

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN3VFgG922A Video about the history of containers and containerships. slide 42 (click on the visual)

· Containerization: the development of standardized metal containers for container ships (Very huge and modern boats able to carry huge quantities of goods).

· Container ship capacity is measured in TEUs or Twenty-foot Equivalent Units based on the smaller 20ft [6.1m] x 8 ft [2.4 m] x 8.5 ft [2.6m] containers.

Quick History of the containers:

- As far back as 1792, boxes similar to modern containers emerged in England and these were transported with horse and wagon and later moved via rail.

- The U.S. government used containers during the Second World War.

- Modern container shipping began in 1956, when Malcolm McLean slide 43, a trucking entrepreneur from North Carolina, U.S., bought a steamship company with the idea of transporting entire truck trailers with their cargo still inside.

- Various companies in the U.S. began to adopt containerization. In 1966, the vessel Fairland owned by Sea-Land sailed from the U.S. to Rotterdam in the Netherlands with 256 containers slide 44. This was the first international voyage of a container ship.

The largest container ship is the OOCL Hong Kong slide 45 (first part), it has a carrying capacity of 21,413 TEU. With a length of almost 400 meters, breadth of 60 meters and a depth of 33 meters, it is the largest container ship ever built. It serves the trade lane from East Asia to Northern Europe, under the flag of Hong Kong.

· The third largest one is the CMA CGM Antoine De Saint Exupéry slide 45 (first part). It has a capacity of 20,656 TEU which makes it the largest container ship to sail under the French flag. It is 400 meters long and 59 meters wide. It was launched in 2018 connecting Asia to Northern Europe. It is an environment-friendly vessel, which has a new generation engine ensuring significant reductions in oil consumption (-25%) and Carbon-di-oxide emissions (-4%). It has a system of filters and UV lamps for the treatment of ballast water, which ensures greater protection of marine biodiversity.

· It is a revolution in the shipping industry because it creates a very modern, fast and simple interaction with other ways of transportation. The standard sizes mean containers can be transshipped on sea-going vessels, trucks, inland barges and train wagons (multimodal platform).

Containerization revolutionized haulage (coûts de transport) by reducing transshipment times and replacing large numbers of workers with crane (grue) technology slide 46 (click on the image to launch a 2’12” video): concepts of roll on and roll off. The (onshore) hinterland and the oceanic foreland are easily and quickly connected. Huge increase of the transport by sea because of the decrease of the cost: today it’s cheaper and faster to import tomatoes from Morocco or toys from China than to grow or manufacture them in Europe. Sending a container from Shanghai to Marseille is cheaper than carrying it by truck from Marseille to Avignon. Businesses can ship products and raw materials all over the world more easily.

· The use of containers has transformed the global cargo trade and there are now around 10,000 container ships traveling between international ports slide 47.

What are the goods carried inside the containers?

Toys, televisions, DVDs, clothing, meat and computers; containers are the best way to transport these and many similar products. By efficiently loading the goods, they can be transported simultaneously in large quantities. One twenty-foot container can hold the shopping of 300 trolleys! Or 3,000 game computers! Or 1,000,000 pencils! And the goods are well protected against the elements by the container's metal walls. The fixed size of the containers also has a major advantage.

The biggest container ships can carry as much as 400 trains, 1,000 A 380 Airbus and 20,000 trucks: economies of scale! slide 48

Slides 49-50 The largest container trade route east to west is the Transpacific (between China and the USA), followed by the Far East-Europe route (between China and Europe) and the Transatlantic.

· China has become one of the main global suppliers and handles more containers than any other nation. slide 51

Where are the busiest container ports in the World? slide 52

The top ten busiest container ports in 2020 are all in Asia, six of them in PRC:

1. Shanghai, China, Yangtze Delta

2. Singapore

3. Shenzhen, China, Pearl River Delta

4. Ningbo-Zhoushan, China, Yangtze Delta (this port is now the most important one worldwide when all traffics are included: containers, minerals, oil and gas…)

5. Busan, South Korea

6. Hong Kong, Pearl River Delta

7. Guangzhou, China, Pearl River Delta

8. Qingdao, China, Yellow Sea

9. Jebel Ali, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

10. Tianjin, China, Yellow Sea

11. Rotterdam, Netherlands

Here are some of the arguments developed in favor of the containers:

· They have made it possible to meet the needs of the world’s growing population by importing and exporting more goods, they provide consumers with more choice and with choices from entirely different cultures, they connect countries, peoples and markets., they boost economies and increase employment….

· Container shipping is the most efficient way to transport large volumes of goods across the world. While airplanes are faster, container ships can carry more goods in one trip. It would take hundreds of airplanes to carry all the goods that can fit on just one large container ship. Transporting goods in large volumes makes it cheaper – it is called ‘economies of scale’.

· Transporting goods by container ship is also better for the environment. It is estimated that on average a container ship emits around 40 times less CO₂ than a large freight aircraft and three times less than a heavy truck. Container shipping is also estimated to be two and a half times more energy efficient than rail and 7 times more so than road

· BUT 60% of the traffic is made with flags of convenience: no control, no taxes, so very small cost but to the detriment of nature and workers. Much more accidents and risk of oil slick. slide 53

Flag of convenience

Each merchant ship is required by international law to be registered in a registry created by a country, and a ship is subject to the laws of that country.

However, many commercial ships are registered under a flag that does not match the nationality of the vessel owner. For example, at the beginning of 2019, one half of all ships owned by Japanese entities were registered in Panama; one fifth of the ships owned by Greek entities were registered in the Marshall Islands, and another fifth in Liberia.

The registering of a ship in a foreign country enables one to avoid the regulations of the owners’ country which may, for example, have stricter safety and environmental standards. They may also select a jurisdiction to reduce operating costs, avoiding higher taxes in the owners’ country and bypassing laws that protect the wages and working conditions of mariners.

As of 2019, the list of countries allowing the Flags of convenience includes 35 countries. Panama, Marshall Islands and Liberia were the leading flags of registration.

Approximately 50% of the world commercial fleet is registered under flags of convenience.

Containerization has allowed the compression of the world: reduction of distance and time (travels, communications, politics, culture, trades, news...): a shrinking world thanks to the changes in the speed and capacity of various transport: flows of goods, materials and people. It is a very strong symbol of globalization as it is a worldwide but also very selective process.

1.2.2. Cables and immaterial flows are central to globalization slide 54

Immaterial flows are cash/financial flows between countries, companies or individuals, but also communication flows.

A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the seabed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea slide 55. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried telegraphy traffic, establishing the first instant telecommunications links between continents, such as the first transatlantic telegraph cable which became operational in 1858 between Europe and the USA. slide 56

Subsequent generations of cables carried telephone traffic, then data communications traffic. Modern cables use optical fiber technology to carry digital data, which includes telephone, Internet and private data traffic. The cables are installed by special boats called cable-layers (around 400 today). As of early 2020, there are over 1.3 million kilometers of submarine cables in service globally (32 times around the earth!) slide 57

Currently 99% of the data traffic that is crossing oceans is carried by undersea cables. The reliability of submarine cables is high, but a typical transoceanic submarine cable system costs several hundred million dollars to construct.

As a result of these cables' cost and usefulness, they are highly valued not only by the corporations building and operating them for profit, but also by national governments. For instance, the Australian government considers its submarine cable systems to be "vital to the national economy".

1.3. Seas and oceans have been and still are places of migration for people: Human flows slide 58

Activity #4 slide 59: start by having the students brainstorming about the concept of migration, then ask about the historical process, then try to define the main flows, the main actors and then ask to fill in the blank chart of the push and pull factors explaining migration.

1.3.1. Migration: the paradox of the globalization process slide 60

Maritime areas (oceans and seas) are also the theater of migration of people since the early ages of History slide 61. As soon as the 15^th century, the arrival of European discoverers and conquistadores on the American shores fostered the trade and human links between Europe, Africa and the Americas as goods and slaves were carried through maritime roads. The Transatlantic slave trade forced between 10 to 15 million African slaves to cross the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved from Brazil to the United States, from the 16^th to the 19^th century slide 62.

The settlement of the United States, Canada and Australia for example was based on massive human migrations made by the seas and oceans from Europe.

Today, a lot of migrations are still taking place by the seas such as boat people, economic migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach the Island of Lampedusa, or the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece for example slide 63.

Analysis of the Migration through the Mediterranean Sea slides 64-65:

Migrants are mostly from Eritrea and Somalia, although increasing numbers of Syrians fleeing the country's civil war are also making the journey.

European countries have closed safe and legal options for people to reach Europe. As a consequence, migrants are forced to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe. Such move pushes them further into people smugglers' networks.

Libya has become a popular starting point for many journeys because traffickers and armed groups have exploited Libya's chaos since after the uprising that toppled and killed Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

In recent years, the European Union has partnered with the coast guard and other Libyan forces to prevent migrants from making the dangerous journey by sea to Europe as European countries attempted to stem migration by strengthening national borders and bolstering detention facilities outside of their borders.

Migrants and refugees are forced into squalid detention centers that lack adequate food and water. And these detention centers are a thriving enterprise of kidnapping and extortion.

Migrants in Libya are exposed to horrific levels of violence, including kidnapping, torture and extortion. They are also often detained in detention centers, usually in horrendous conditions.

As migrants, including children and women, pay a high price to cross the sea to reach Lampedusa on overcrowded and ill-equipped inflatable boats, they are at very high-risk of overturning/capsizing and sinking.

Migration charities believe that as many as 20,000 people may have died at sea trying to reach Europe in the last two decades. The Lampedusa tragedy is making the Mediterranean Sea a "cemetery" for desperate migrants. In 2019, one person died in the Central Mediterranean for every 10 who arrive in Europe by sea

Some migrants have been helped and rescued by NGO (Non-Governmental organizations) such as MSF with their boats Aquarius, operated in partnership with SOS MEDITERRANEE, and then the Ocean Viking.

Those who survive the crossing of the Sea must often face violence-related injuries resulting from time in detention, torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence and rape. They often also have skin diseases, dehydration, hypothermia, and serious injuries such as chemical burns caused by fuel mixing with sea water during the crossing.

https://www.msf.org/mediterranean-migration-depth

https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean

Migration/ human flows represent a strong paradox of the globalization process. Globalization has been driven by increasing flows of goods and capital, by increasingly integrated markets. It has been made possible by the gradual lowering/ deregulation of barriers, tariffs, to their movement across borders, by liberalization of trade and investment slide 66 (first part).

BUT countries did not deregulate barriers for the flow of people. In fact, most countries have largely resisted liberalizing migration policies slide 66 (second part). + slide 67

1.3.2. Tourism in the maritime areas: coastal tourism and cruises slide 68

Activity #5: Fill in the chart about the positive and the negative aspects of coastal tourism and cruises slide 69

Tourism was the fastest growing division of the world economy (until the COVID 19) and was responsible for more than 200 million jobs all over the world. In the US alone, tourism resulted in an economic gain of roughly 500 billion dollars. With 700 million people traveling to another country each year, tourism is in the top five economic contributors to 83% of all countries and the most important economy for 38% of countries.

DEFINITIONS:

· Coastal tourism refers to land-based tourism activities including swimming, surfing, sunbathing and other coastal recreation activities taking place on the coast for which the proximity to the sea is a condition including also their respective services.

· Maritime tourism refers to sea-based activities such as boating, yachting, cruising, nautical sports as well as their land-based services and infrastructures.

Example of coastal tourism in the Adriatic Sea, along the shores of Italy, Greece, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Slovenia slide 70

The tourism sector in the Adriatic Ionian region is among the most active sectors in Europe as it attracts around 12% of the total tourists visiting a European destination (around 57M tourists every year). Italy and Croatia host most of the tourists targeting this region.

Different types of tourists target this region:

· Italy and Greece attract two types of tourists: on the one hand, low profile (camping, small scale fishing and recreational fishing) and mass tourism destinations (low quality services for high volumes of tourists), and on the other hand, niche tourism destinations (high quality of services for low volumes of tourists with higher willingness to spend).

· In Croatia, despite the range of possibilities, current models mostly include summer seaside tourism and particularly sailing.

· In Montenegro the accommodation offer is very limited and not organized; however, gradually this sector is growing due to important ecologically preserved attractions present in this country.

· Albania’s model seems to attract mostly visitors from within the country, especially during the summer period, rather than foreign visitors.

Coastal tourism is based on natural resources present in each country, but it usually negatively affects ecosystems because it is often left unmanaged. Tourism is a significant source of pressure on natural resources.

The negative effects of coastal tourism originate from the development of coastal habitats and the annihilation of entire ecosystems like mangroves, coral reefs, wetlands and estuaries.

Garbage and sewage generated by visitors can add to the already existing solid waste and garbage disposal issues present in many communities. Often visitors produce more waste than locals, and much of it ends up as untreated sewage dumped in the ocean.

Other problems with tourism include the overexploitation of local seafood, marine litter, the destruction of local habitats through careless scuba diving or snorkeling and the dropping of anchors on underwater features, leading to the loss of biodiversity (species and habitats).

Sustainable tourism can actually promote conservation of the environment. Ecotourism and cultural tourism are a new trend that favors low impact tourism and fosters a respect for local cultures and ecosystems.

Tourism along and on the seas and oceans: the example of Cruises

The number of cruise tourists worldwide in 2018 was estimated at some 26 million

slide 71 The main region for cruising is North America, where the Caribbean islands were the most popular destinations especially during the northern hemisphere’s winter months. It captures more than a third of the demand from the world’s leading source market, which continues to be North America. Miami, Florida is the first port for cruises around the world. slide 72

The Mediterranean (15%) remains in second place as a destination: the Mediterranean cruise market is going through a fast and fundamental change; Italy has won prime position as a destination for European cruises, and destination for the whole of the Mediterranean basin. slide 73 The most visited ports in the Mediterranean Sea are Barcelona (Spain), Civitavecchia (Italy), Palma (Spain) and Venice (Italy). The share of cruise destinations situated in Asia and the Pacific remains small

Next is Continental Europe (13%), where the fastest growing segment is cruises in the Baltic Sea slide 74. Americans are going mainly in the Caribbean’s, and Europeans are going mainly in the Mediterranean Sea.

BUT It is worth mentioning that cruises in the Mediterranean (for example) are also a source of considerable ecological pressure including water and coastal pollution and seabed destruction. slide 75

Cruises are also responsible for serious environmental impacts namely air and water pollution, noise pollution, as well as increasing solid wastes and litter. slide 76

Using the oceans for tourism can also cause accidents such as the Costa Concordia disaster in 2012 (but very limited number of casualties over the years). slide 77

It could have huge environmental impacts with the increasing number of cruises in the Arctic and the Antarctic Oceans, as it would be almost impossible to clean the areas in case of oil slick or other damages. slide 78

2. Oceans and seas are unequally integrated into globalization: a selective process (ppt 2 - slide 1)

KEY QUESTIONS:

Why are some territories on the margins of globalization, based on their relation to maritime spaces?

How can countries overcome such marginalization?

Activity #6 slide 2: Fill in each box with arguments and examples to clearly understand the role that oceans and seas play at reinforcing the power of core countries, giving hope to integrated peripheries converging and holding back marginalized peripheries diverging.

2.1. Maritime activities, as cores, are mainly located at the interfaces of globalization slide 3

Some maritime facades are major interfaces (DEF°: area of contact between two systems, here the oceanic foreland and the onshore hinterland, having an effect on each other) for globalization because of the phenomenon of “littoralization” of the global economy: tendency for economic development, urbanization… to cluster along a coastline.

Ports are today major maritime gateways. The main maritime facades are the ones of the extended former Triad in Europe (the Northern Range), North America (the western and the eastern shores, mainly linked to the American megalopolis, from Boston to Washington) and the southern and eastern Asian maritime facades. They are extremely dynamic and integrated into the globalization process. slide 4

These maritime facades also gather people (market and labor force) and industries producing goods.

These maritime facades are part of the three main cores of the globalization process.

On a WORLD SCALE, flows created by the globalization process are very localized between these three main cores: Northern America (USA + Canada), Western Europe (the former 15-EU) + Eastern Asia (Japan, the eastern coast of China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore…) slide 5

These countries, as leaders of regional blocs, are the wealthiest; they are the core of globalization because they gather financial, economic, technological, intellectual, political and military powers: 80% of the world GDP for only 20% of the world population.

They also gather money, technologies and information:

· 72% of the world's industries (most industrialized countries, importance of the services in their economy, post-industrial societies).

· 75% of the world trade, mainly trade within each economic zone

· 92% of the world market capitalisation between the main Stock Exchanges

· 85% of the world research and universities (domination of the innovation process and technological competition between wealthy countries, cf. Nobel Prices)

Ports and other types of gateway centers serve the regions that surround them (the hinterlands = backcountry of a port). The more important gateways serve very large regions while less important hubs serve smaller regions.

The hinterland is a land space over which a transport terminal, such as a port, sells its services and interacts with its users slide 6. It regroups all the customers directly bonded to the terminal and the land areas from which it draws and distributes traffic. The terminal, depending on its nature, serves as a place of convergence for the traffic coming by roads, railways or by sea/fluvial feeders (smaller container ships gathering or spreading of containers to smaller ports)

The ports of the Northern Range, a major interface thanks to a very developed hinterland slide 7

The Northern Range extends itself upon 700 km from Le Havre to Hamburg. With more than thirty ports, it stands as the world's second largest merchandise trading port front after China's Yellow Sea.

It is an area of interface between the English Channel and a vast territory made of different European regions. These regions form an agglomeration around the Rhine (important player in the countries’ economies and trading systems). The Northern Range represents around 10% of the world's trade.

The Northern Range is divided in three sectors:

1- Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam form the first sector (Main advantage: central location)

2- Le Havre, located at the South would be the second one

3- The third sector regroups Hamburg and Bremen up in the North

However, the Northern Range faces a number of issues:

- Access to the sea is a constant struggle for ports at the end of estuaries: Antwerp, Bremen, Hamburg are all situated at around 40 miles to the sea, Amsterdam and Rotterdam had to dig a channel to facilitate the maritime trade. Improvements like deepening the navigable channels have been made with time in most European ports to be able to receive bigger ships or to improve maritime traffic.

- With giant ships carrying goods, hundreds of fishing vessels and ferries transporting 70,000 passengers per day between England and Europe, the English Channel is considered to be the most congested sea in the world. Storms, violent currents, wrecks, also make the maritime environment perilous.

Furthermore, the coastal area is a cause of conflicts; territories fight to have industrial, fishing and touristic zones that are part of the Northern Channel.

CONCLUSION: The Northern Range is an area that connects Europe with world trade by being the second trading coastline in the world, after the Yellow Sea. However, it faces some problems such as the competition between the territories, the environmental dangers or the coastal area being disputed.

Examples of the busiest port in the USA: maritime interface linking poles of the three cores together through trade flows. slide 9

#1. Port of Los Angeles

The Port of Los Angeles is located in South California. Given its strategic location close to the Los Angeles county’s 10M population (dense, wealthy, industrial and agricultural hinterland), it’s no wonder that it’s responsible for the majority of the Transpacific trade. Also nicknamed America’s Port, it stretches over 7,500 acres of land and with a 43-mile-long waterfront, it accounts for 13.5% of the North American market share. Since 2000, it’s held the post as the top port in the US. It currently ranks as the 19^th busiest port in the world in terms of container volume.

The Mediterranean façade, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean are also dynamic maritime areas, both in terms of goods and human flows (migration and tourism), linking core countries and integrated peripheries (the USA and Mexico, China and Vietnam or Bangladesh…).

2.2. Some countries have been able to use their maritime facades to integrate globalization while others are remaining excluded from this selective process: integrated and marginalized peripheries slide 10

KEY IDEAS

Globalization often creates/emphasizes/reinforces global inequalities

2.2.1. Some integrated peripheries have been able to use their access to the maritime areas to develop their economies…

Integrated Peripheries: CONVERGENCE

This convergence phenomenon is mainly true for the most dynamics areas in the South such as the Asian Dragoons (South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore) or the Emerging countries: Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, China, India...: but the economic growth of each member of the BRICS must be nuanced today.

New places of globalization are developed in the South mainly where TNCs are relocating their activities (Brazil, India, China, Nigeria). These places are close to the coasts (cf. 90% of the economic activities are made by sea route). But these places are developed only if they are linked with some megalopolises.

Concept of interface = area of contact between two different places, with different kinds of commercial trades.

Some peripheries are integrated because

· they are supplying and exporting by boats raw material (farms products or oil for example Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Algeria, but it creates some huge social and economic inequalities within these countries because the lion’s share goes only to some lucky few, most of the population remains extremely poor)

· They are offering a very cheap labor force (“workshop countries” such as Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam. The production is then exported through container ships to MEDCs (Most Economically Developed Countries).

Other integrated peripheries have taken advantage of the lack of regulations or/and of the lack of taxes to develop their economies:

Ø 15 micro-states are hosting 60% of the world fleet thank to their flag of convenience (almost exclusively islands and maritime countries)

Ø 70 tax havens slides 11-12 (DEF: countries that have little or no income taxation) are used by companies and wealthy people to not pay taxes such as Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Singapore, the Isle of Man… Most are island countries.

Example of a tax haven: Bermuda slide 13

One of the most expensive countries to live in, Bermuda features a 0 percent corporate tax rate, as well as no personal income tax. Due to the lack of corporate taxes, U.S. multinational companies have raked in huge amounts of money in Bermuda.

One company that used the country's zero corporate tax rate to boost profits is Nike. The Paradise Papers reveal that from 2005 to 2014, Nike shifted large sums of money to Bermuda by opening a subsidiary called Nike International Ltd.

The subsidiary did not appear to have a local office or employees, but "it charged large trademark loyalty fees to Nike's European headquarters," reports The Guardian. So, the company was able to move profits from Europe to Nike International Ltd in Bermuda, according to the report.

Ø 3,000 free-trade zones (DEF: A designated area, as of a city, where certain taxes or restrictions on business or trade do not apply) are gathering 43 million workers. slide 14

An example of Free-Trade zone in Panama, the port of Colón slide 15

The Colón Free Trade Zone is a large entity near the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal, located in Panama dedicated to re-exporting a wide variety of merchandise to Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a free port.

The Colón Free Trade Zone is the largest free port in the Americas, and second largest in the world. It started operations in 1948. Today, the Colón Free Zone is home to 1,751 companies. It is considered the "trading showcase" of Central and South America, as well as of the Caribbean region.

The Colón Free Zone is an important supplier of goods to other free zones such as Hong Kong (China), Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Korea, France, Mexico, Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Germany.

Colon is a free port with modern facilities such as container ports, direct access through the Pan-American Highway, air access, and trains transporting containers daily from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. There are no capital investment taxes. Municipal and local taxes do not apply to firms operating in the free zone, and there are no taxes on shipments to or from the free zone from or to anywhere in the world.

Ø Finally, some small islands are integrated into this globalization process because they have a strategic location slide 16:

Malta and the Reunion Island are both major hubs for the CMA CGM shipowner. Also, the US army has built military bases on many small islands in the different oceans in order to be able to act, intervene and project troops in needed: Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in the Pacific, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean… slide 17

2.2.2. …But some marginalized peripheries have not been able to use their access to maritime areas to develop their economies slide 18

Marginalized peripheries: DIVERGENCE even if they are close to the seas and oceans.

A lot of countries and a third of the world population are at the margin of globalization. These countries are mainly LEDCs (Least Economically developed Countries) slide 19: most of them are Sub-Saharan Africa countries (33 out of 50 countries Gathering their GDP = Austria’s GDP) and some in the Pacific (many small islands). They are deeply impacted by globalization without being able to influence it.

Although a significant number of them are landlocked countries, some benefit from maritime access without managing to use it as a major asset enabling them to integrate successfully into globalization.

Some of the worst failed/fragile States today with a maritime facade

DEF°: A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly slide 20

· ERITREA: A small country in the Horn of Africa, Eritrea has been under dictatorial rule since 1993, when it gained independence from Ethiopia. Eritreans have suffered from military clashes with the Ethiopians and years of failed governance. Eritrea scores worst on human rights, demographic pressures, and legitimacy of state.

· NORTH KOREA: Called the Hermit Kingdom for its seclusion from the outside world, North Korea got a terrible score for legitimacy of state. Human rights violations are rampant, and aid organizations estimate more than 2 million have died since the mid-1990s over food shortages alone.

2.3. Maritime roads reinforce this selective process, fostering hubs and forgetting other territories slide 21

slide 23 The shipping boats go through the main maritime shipping routes from China to the Mediterranean Sea along India and through Suez then the USA then Panama then China, but also use some secondary routes to Australia, also along South Africa and towards Brazil.

There is potentially an infinite number of maritime shipping routes that can be used for commercial circulation, but the configuration of the global system is relatively simple slide 24. The main axis is a circum-equatorial corridor linking North America, Europe, and Pacific Asia (the core of the extended Triad) through the Suez Canal, the Strait of Malacca, and the Panama Canal.

These routes are supporting the bulk of the traffic, but numerous other routes are existing (namely for coastal shipping), depending on the origin and the destination of the maritime shipment.

Transatlantic and transpacific traffic concerns a wide variety of ports, so there are numerous routes, most of them having a path along the great circle. Trans-Indian ocean traffic is dominantly intermediary traffic between Pacific Asia and Europe, implying a series of more clearly defined routes, namely between the Strait of Malacca and Bab el-Mandeb.

The rest of the oceans and seas, mainly the Southern Atlantic and the South-Eastern Pacific, remain out of these main maritime routes. Population living in these areas remain excluded from globalization as the location they live in massively impacts their capacity to trade, to import and export goods at a cheap price.

3. Geostrategic stakes and power rivalries are increased by major changes taking place (ppt 3 - slide 1)

KEY QUESTIONS:

What transformations are underway in access to and regulation of maritime spaces?

3.1. Islands, canals and straits: strategic chokepoints for globalization

A case-study Strait of Malacca: a major and strategic crossing point (PPO#2) slide 2

Along these maritime routes are some obligatory points of passage, also called chokepoints (goulets d’étranglement) that are extremely strategic in terms of geography, geopolitics and maritime trade: straits (détroits) slide 3 such as Malacca slide 4, Gibraltar or Hormuz as link between the main ports, as the entrance to the main megalopolis.

Physical constraints (coasts, winds, marine currents, depth, reefs, ice) and political borders also play an important role in shaping maritime routes. As a result, core routes are those supporting the most important commercial shipping flows servicing major markets. Secondary routes are mostly connectors between smaller markets.

Chokepoints can be classified into two main categories:

· Primary chokepoints. The most important since without them there would be limited cost-effective maritime shipping alternatives, which would seriously impair global trade. Among those are the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca, which are key locations in the global trade of goods and commodities.

· Secondary chokepoints. Support maritime routes that have alternatives but would still involve a notable detour. These include the Magellan Passage, the Dover Strait, the Sunda Strait, and the Taiwan Strait.

EXAMPLE = PANAMA CANAL, at the center of geoeconomic and geostrategic tensions

The Panama Canal slide 5 connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the narrow Isthmus of Panama. The length of the Panama Canal from shoreline to shoreline is about 40 miles (65 km) and from deep water in the Atlantic (more specifically, the Caribbean Sea) to deep water in the Pacific about 50 miles (82 km).

The canal, which was completed in August 1914 after 10 years of construction slide 6, is one of the two most strategic artificial waterways in the world, the other being the Suez Canal. Ships sailing between the east and west coasts of the United States, which otherwise would be obliged to round Cape Horn in South America, shorten their voyage by about 8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km) by using the canal. Savings of up to 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km) are also made on voyages between one coast of North America and ports on the other side of South America. Ships sailing between Europe and East Asia or Australia can save as much as 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) by using the canal.

Continuous improvements:

Throughout history, the canal had been improved in order to welcome longer and bigger boats. From 1991 to 2001, an ambitious development allowed the two-way passage of so-called Panamax ships (the then largest ships allowable in the canal) and decreased the average canal travel time by about 6 hours to about 10 hours total.

Despite such improvements, many supertankers and large naval vessels were still too large to pass through the canal. There was much study of the feasibility of either widening the existing canal and locks or building a larger sea-level canal at another location.

Cost and environmental concerns eliminated the latter option, and in 2006 the Panamanian government and voters backed the Third Set of Locks Project, a $5.2 billion expansion program completed in 2016 slide 7.

The project doubled the canal’s capacity to allow the passage of a new generation of supersized ships, dubbed “neo-Panamax”

The construction of the third set of locks inspired numerous articles, reports, and studies speculating on how the passage of post-Panamax ships through the canal would have an impact on global shipping patterns. In the United States, many East Coast ports began ramping up expansion and modernization plans in anticipation of increasing amounts of those large ships, which generally require channels with depths of more than 50 feet (15 meters) if fully loaded.

Economic and political importance of the canal

Each year approximately 14,000 ships from 84 countries use the canal, 5% of the global trade volume but it is less important than it once was. Some 10% of the world's container ships are too big to go through the canal, and railways now carry much of its cargo.

The canal however remains of great political and economic importance. Tolls for using the canal, which total about 1 billion USD a year, are Panama’s chief revenue source. The Panamanian government has invested 5 billion USD in canal maintenance and expansion.

From its opening in 1914 until 1979, the Panama Canal was controlled solely by the United States, which built it. In 1979, however, control of the canal passed to the Panama Canal Commission, a joint agency of the United States and the Republic of Panama, and complete control passed to Panama at noon on December 31, 1999.

However, even if Panama controls the canal today, it reminds the dominance of the USA in the region and in Latin America. Washington helped carve the nation of Panama from Colombia in 1903 in order to gain control of the canal route. As the "belt buckle" of the Western Hemisphere, it had considerable strategic/military importance because Howard Air Force Base in the Canal Zone had been the hub for US anti-drug efforts in Latin America.

Symbolic of the rise of China, a Hong Kong company, Hutchison Whampoa, won the right to control a port facility at each end of the canal after a somewhat murky bidding process.

Major transformations are taking place in access to and regulation of maritime spaces.

3.2. The rise of China as a new major maritime power slide 8

China influences more and more world maritime trade and its organization as, out of the 20 first world ports, 15 are Chinese whereas only 4 were Chinese in 2000. slide 9

The Chinese maritime façade is the first on a world scale

3.2.1. The SEZ, Special Economic Zones along the Chinese maritime façade slide 10

In 1976 (Mao’s death) China was still a rural and under-industrialized country. One-third of its population lived in extreme poverty. By denouncing this backwardness, moderate communist leaders challenged Maoism.

Their leader Deng Xiaoping took over China in 1978 and began new political and economic reforms.

Main Quote from Deng Xiaoping slide 11: “It does not matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice” (whether China is communist, or capitalist is not really important as long as it provides economic growth to the population). To start the process of modernization, Deng Xiaoping gave priority to the economy through the FOUR MODERNIZATIONS. Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms involved using capitalist ideas to help improve the Chinese economy è Capitalism was used as a tool to achieve a socialist society.

Deng based the modernization on the maritime façade as China started to welcome foreign technological ideas and Investments (FDI) from TNCs in the SEZ: Special Economic Zones slide 12 è several towns along the coast in which foreign and domestic trade and investment were conducted without the authorization of the Chinese central government in Beijing. Special economic zones are intended to function as zones of rapid economic growth by using tax and business incentives to attract foreign investment and technology.

The first special economic zones were created in 1980 in southeastern coastal China and consisted of what were then the small cities of Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shantou in Guangdong province and Xiamen in Fujian

Since 1988, the entire coastline has been open to free trade and foreign investments.

Outcome: These economic reforms led to a boom in the overall Chinese economy: in 2010, China passed Japan and became the #2 economy in the world: massive industrialization and insertion in globalization slide 13.

This growth of Chinese maritime power must be considered as part of the growth of the entire eastern Asia region.

In EASTERN ASIA, economic development comes with an increasing economic integration symbolized by the intensity of the intra-regional flows. Most of these exchanges are made by companies carrying components, furniture, finished products between a subsidiary and the mother-company.

Such integration results from a Regional Division of Labor and from successive outsourcing of factories from MEDCs to LEDCs. East Asian countries multiplied Free-Trade Agreements such as the agreement signed between the ASEAN and China in 2010.

New International Division of Labor: A global division of labor associated with the growth of transnational corporations (TNCs) and the de-industrialization of the advanced economies. The most common pattern is for research and development to take place in more economically developed countries (MEDC), while the less skilled processes are carried out by cheap labor in less economically developed countries (LEDC).

From a geographic point of view, this integration has given birth to an “economic corridor” from Singapore to Tokyo, structured by some nubs (noeuds) located on the maritime facade.

Interfaces between local, regional and world flows, these nubs are the main cities with some of the most important ports around the world, international airports and stock exchanges: Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Taiwan, Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo.

3.2.2. The maritime Silk Road, as part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): the ambitions to become a world maritime power slide 14

Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China unveiled in 2013 a plan called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as the New Silk Road), to expand trade links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond. The main geopolitical and geostrategic goal of the Plan is to strengthen the Chinese hegemony in these areas. The goal of the plan is also to secure and increase the arrival of raw materials and manufactured goods since and to South Asia, Africa and Europe, to sustain the massive Chinese economic growth.

The most ambitious infrastructure development plan ever conceived, which bears Xi’s personal imprint and stands as striking evidence of the decisive shift in Chinese Foreign Policy from Deng Xiaoping’s “bide and hide” to today’s “striving for achievements.”

The targeted date for the completion of the BRI is 2049, the centenary anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, for the BRI is at its core a political project, whatever the economic considerations and justifications given for it.

As of the end of January 2020, China had signed 200 BRI cooperation documents with 138 countries and 30 International Organizations. This warm reception reflects the widespread view by participating countries that the BRI presents an opportunity to accelerate their economic development by improving their competitiveness, attracting much needed foreign investment, diversifying their economies, and upgrading their physical infrastructure. slide 15

the maritime projects parts of the BRI could be named such as the Kra canal in Thailand slide 16 to cross the peninsula (not a priority for the government but it would allow ships to avoid the Malacca Strait and to shorten the transit shipment), the ports of Colombo in Sri Lanka or the one of Djibouti, all upgraded with Chinese investments.

Some of these projects are creating a growing anti-Chinese feeling as more and more countries have a massive debt to reimburse to China, making them more and more dependent and vulnerable.

3.3. New transcontinental canals and roads are challenging the established ones slide 17

New transcontinental canals are considered in order to ease the traffic at some chokepoints. The main one was a canal through Nicaragua, but it has been dropped because of the financial and political difficulties.

3.3.1. A canal through Nicaragua?

There is a long history of attempts to build a canal across Nicaragua to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean slide 18. Construction of such a shipping route—using the San Juan River as an access route to Lake Nicaragua—was first proposed in the early colonial era. Napoleon III wrote an article about its feasibility in the middle of the 19th century.

The United States abandoned plans to construct a waterway in Nicaragua in the early 20^thcentury after it purchased the French interests in the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal was built and that is now the main connecting route across Central America.

During the 2010s, Wang Jing, an enigmatic Chinese industrialist with ties to China’s ruling party lobbied the Nicaragua’s government to push forward the construction of a 173-mile artificial waterway/ 278-kilometer Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal—wider, deeper and three and a half times the length of the Panama Canal.

The Grand Nicaragua Canal’s estimated costs amount to $40 billion and would take five years to build. The channel would accommodate the newest cargo supertankers, too big to pass through the Panama Canal.

Activists, scientists and others are increasingly alarmed by the environmental impact because the new canal and its infrastructure, from roads to pipelines to power plants, would destroy or alter nearly one million acres of rainforest and wetlands. And that doesn’t include Lake Nicaragua that provides most Nicaraguans with drinking water. The canal cuts through the lake, and critics say ship traffic will pollute the water with industrial chemicals and introduce destructive invasive plants and animals.

The project is now widely viewed as defunct, with China having shifted its investment focus to Panama, the main competitor to a Nicaraguan canal.

3.3.2. Potential roads along the Arctic Ocean (because of geopolitical and geoenvironmental stakes), but at a very high environmental cost slide 1

Because of global warming, the Arctic Sea is increasingly considered as a new frontier between neighboring countries including the USA, Canada, Denmark, Russia, Norway and China. The Arctic region is becoming an increasingly geopolitical hotspot.

The Arctic has been pegged as the final frontier for fossil fuels slide 20. This is ironic given that it becomes more temperate, ice-free and drillable because of the massive and constant burning of fossil fuels. A report published in 2008 by the US Geological Survey estimated there were 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 47 trillion square meters of natural gas in the Arctic.

The numbers amount to around 22 per cent of the world’s technically recoverable resources. But are they technically recoverable? Not immediately, but inevitably. Oil projects are being dictated by two dynamics: the expense of operating in such harsh conditions and the plummeting price of oil. As a result, big oil companies are looking at Arctic exploitation as more of a long-term investment.

slide 21 Two maritime roads are potentially usable around the Arctic Sea, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the Northwest Passage (NWP). They are potential maritime shortcuts between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, but they remain perilous and costly.

slide 22 In February 2018, the Teekay vessel Eduard Toll set out from South Korea in December for Sabetta terminal in northern Russia, cutting through ice 1.8m thick to deliver a load of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Montoir, France. It was the first unescorted cargo vessel to traverse the NWP

As alternatives to the Suez and Panama Canal respectively, each could cut as much as 40 per cent from distance costs, while shortening 9,000 miles of the trip between Europe and Asia slides 23-24.

Today a boat leaving Murmansk in Russia needs 42 days to go to Shanghai today by the Suez Canal versus 22 days by the Arctic Sea.

However, there are other costs to consider such as the high fuel consumption of ice-class vessels, icebreaker escort fees and paying for experienced (and therefore expensive) Arctic crew slide 25 – costs which don’t make economic sense for a standard shipping company. (Plus, the environmental ones such as the difficulty to clean an oil spill in the coasts of the Arctic)

Also, slide 26 Malte Humpert, director of the Arctic Institute and shipping expert, comments on the link between the Arctic resources and Arctic shipping: ‘If oil prices remain low, we’ll see less activity in that sector resulting in less shipping. It’s all interconnected.’

So, until 2020, the Northern Roads will probably remain a niche and experimental venture.

Finally, the Arctic Ocean is becoming an increasingly significant military stake in a context of constant geo economic and geopolitical tensions around the world slide 27. The remilitarization of the Arctic is clearly linked to economic, political and strategic issues. If overlapping sovereignty claims are not enough, there are resources and shipping lanes also in contention. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Arctic countries are flexing their muscles.

Canada has just committed to spending CA$3.5billion on Arctic defense and Denmark has injected vast amounts of time and money on its Arctic Command. However, the headlines hover in Russia slides 28-29. When it comes to Arctic defense, Russia’s recent military exercise demonstrated that it is second to no-one. Constant upgrades to its naval forces and the re-opening of Soviet army bases point towards an extensive Arctic system of defense and rescue which stretches the length of its northern coastline.

While it appears to be an unsubtle show of strength, Russia’s militarization may also come from a need to bolster Arctic infrastructure as interest in the region continues to grow.

4. Increasing conflicts and rivalries between maritime powers because of contradictory goals: freedom of circulation, appropriation and protection of the oceans (ppt 4 - slide 1)

KEY QUESTIONS: What rivalries or conflicts are emerging in maritime spaces?

How are seas and oceans (maritime spaces) claimed by different states in need of protection, and territories with open circulation (freedom of the seas)?

4.1. The UN Convention of 1973 reaffirmed the freedom of the sea while establishing the EEZ slide 2

4.1.1. The use of the seas and oceans is regulated by international rules.

Until 1973, the oceans and seas were divided between mare clausum under the rules of a country (a few miles from the coasts) and mare liberum open to everyone. Slides 3-5

But from 1973 to 1982 took place the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea at Montego Bay (Jamaica), also named UNCLOS. The Convention came out with a Law of the Sea Convention signed by 117 states in 1982. This Convention defines the rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world's oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of marine natural resources.

Most importantly, the Montego Bay meeting structured the creation of three different areas: Slides 6-10

· The Territorial waters: 12 nautical miles (= 22 km) under the total sovereignty of the state

· The Economic Exclusive Zone = sea zone stretching from the seaward edge of the state's territorial sea out to 200 nautical miles from its coast (= 370 km) over which a state has economic sovereignty. It can explore and exploit maritime natural resources (including energy production from water and wind, mineral resources, fishes…), it can build artificial islands and it can control the airspace. But the state cannot forbid circulation (planes or boats). Today the USA has the largest EEZ (11 million km²), France is #2 with around 10.7M km²

· The open/high sea opens to everyone with a total freedom of circulation, except pirates. It covers around 55% of the seas and oceans.

Such division of the seas and oceans is the source of many conflicts between countries contesting each other’s EEZ in areas where countries are close to each other, or when they overlap each other’s EEZ. (Example of the Turkish claims slide 11)

4.1.2. The Montego Bay Convention organizes the freedom of movement in the seas and oceans slide 12

One of the main rules of the Montego Bay Convention is the fact nobody owns the oceans and the seas. They are open to everyone, outside of the territorial waters. So, a State cannot forbid another State to navigate inside its EEZ, to fly over peacefully or to lay submarine cables and pipelines. Also, states close to a strait cannot forbid boats to cross it.

For the high sea, the Convention puts forward the fact that States must fight against slave trade and piracy, and that they must preserve biological resources.

4.2. Tensions between countries trying to appropriate maritime resources and territories

The Montego Bay Conference did not solve the paradox between the appropriation and exploitation of the resources of the maritime areas (oceans and seas) by coastal nations and the necessity of the freedom of movement, basis of global trade and globalization, resulting in numerous conflicts.

Some countries are fighting to keep oceans and seas open (as the US fleet in the South China Sea) while other countries put forward the appropriation of the resources and try to strengthen their sovereignty over these parts of the oceans and seas (example of the Chinese in the South China Sea: PPO) slide 13

Also slide 14, 168 countries signed the Montego Bay Convention, but the USA, with 13 other UN states, has signed the Convention but has not ratified it because of opposition from Republicans in the Senate, where treaties must be approved by a two-thirds' vote.

There are 15 United Nations member and observer states (including Israel, Peru and Syria) which have neither signed nor acceded either the Convention or the Agreement.

PPO: The Arab-Persian Gulf

PPO: The South China Sea

PPO: The Arctic Ocean

4.2.1. International tensions: the Chinese Navy is increasingly challenging the hegemony of the US Navy slide 15

One traditional pillar of the power of the State is the management of its maritime areas. Countries must be able to secure the main maritime roads and mainly the strategic straits with a very high traffic, under the pressure of the pirates.

The main tool of their powers is the Navies (military fleet) in different countries but only the USA can be considered as a global maritime policeman: 11 aircraft carriers, 225,000 sailors, 4000 planes against two aircraft carriers for China (a third one is under construction) slide 16. The tonnage (= volume of the ships) of the US Navy is equivalent to the one of the six other main fleets (Russia, China, UK, Japan, France and Turkey) slide 17.

Only the USA has today the capacity to quickly project its troops all around the world supported by about 200 American military bases and 6 active fleets all around the world è the USA is the first maritime world power.

But some emerging countries and growing powers are increasingly competing, contesting the US maritime power such as China mainly as part of a global strategy to assert itself as a world power, with two aircraft carriers in operation in 2020 slide 18.

The international community has been viewing China's recent moves relating to the seas as representing "maritime expansion," and the Chinese themselves have come to talk about making their country a maritime power.

A major factor allowing China to turn its attention in the direction of the waters to its east and south was the elimination of the burden that had been imposed by the land-based confrontation with the Soviet Union to the north and west. The navy, which had previously limited its strategy to coastal defense because of the priority placed on the army, shifted its sights to offshore defense.

After the establishment of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, concluded in 1982, ratified by China in 1996), the waters under China's jurisdiction thereby grew from 370,000 square kilometers to 3 million km², equal to almost one-third of the country's land area of 9.7 million km².

Link between the rise of Chinese maritime and Chinese military power

China put into service the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier in September 2012. Liaoning was the symbol of China’s military modernization and its desire to extend its combat capacity

It is projected that China may possess five or six aircraft carriers by the 2030s

Foreign analysts say China’s military abilities and budget still lag far behind those of the United States, which is China’s greatest rival for influence in the western Pacific.

CONCLUSION: slide 19

In the South Chinese sea, the rise of the Chinese military power as an opponent to the American one questions the freedom of the seas, the US capacity to maintain this freedom of the seas and the sovereignty of other nations in the region.

4.2.2. Local tensions between states in order to control/ appropriate maritime areas (70 conflicts based on the ocean): based on historical and political rivalries slide 20

The main areas of local tensions between countries are the EEZ and the continental shelf because it is where most of the resources are located = oil and fishing mainly.

Example of China and the EAST CHINA SEA to control most of this maritime area. Nationalist tensions between China and Japan about some islands in the East Chinese Sea: MAINLY POLITICAL AND NATIONALIST TENSIONS more than economic ones. slide 21

On the East China Sea, Japan asks for a median line, sharing the EEZ while China asks for the complete control of the continental shelf (at stake = natural and mineral resources but mainly a question of sovereignty on territories and of nationalism).

This maritime dispute is complicated by another tension over the sovereignty of a small archipelago called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. They are located roughly due east of Mainland China, northeast of Taiwan, west of Okinawa Island, and north of the southwestern end of the Ryukyu Islands.

The archipelago is ruled by Japan but is claimed by the Chinese. It had been annexed by the Japanese in 1895, as they did with Taiwan. China estimates that the islands should have been retroceded after WW2.

After it was discovered in 1968 that oil reserves might be found under the sea near the islands, Japan's sovereignty over them has been disputed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan. The Chinese claim the discovery and control of the islands from the 14^th century.

Economic issues: Such issues are not as controversial as the political ones. Both countries agreed in the mid-1990s to establish a common fishing zone. They are not opposed to a kind of cooperation to exploit the offshore oil deposit, symbolized by the signature of an agreement in 2008.

But geopolitical tension is still very high, and people react very quickly such as in August 2010 when the captain and the crew of a Chinese fishing boat were arrested by the Japanese police close to the Senkaku islands. It created nationalist demonstrations in both countries.

The election in December 2012 of a nationalist Japanese Prime minister Shinzo Abe claiming the islands and asking for the rearmament of the country to face China, and the rise of China’s economic and political power do not help to solve this issue, in a growing context of American isolationism and power vacuum in the Pacific.

The impacts of the Brexit on the French-British maritime relations

French and other European vessels currently have access to British waters as part of the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which sets quotas for member states active in shared European exclusive economic zone waters.

But shared access would effectively end without a Brexit deal on October 31^st, 2020 and the French and other European boats will be barred from British waters. slide 22

Such uncertainty creates many fears and tensions as the fish caught by the French in British waters account for 25 percent of the industry's volume and 20 percent of its value. France is not the only country facing a Brexit blow to their fishing. Eight EU member states will be affected one way or another.

In France, a no-deal Brexit will also increase tensions among the French fishermen because they will be left fighting among themselves over what is left. The prospect of such infighting means Breton fishing vessels clashing with their Norman neighbors.

Finally, while the French are most concerned about access, the British industry’s main concern is in the future of its exports to the continent, especially in the event of a no-deal Brexit and defaulting to World Trade Organization rules because of the questions of tariffs and of delay caused by customs arrangements, mainly for perishable commodity such as fresh or live fish, particularly shellfish

4.3. Even if the seas and oceans are monitored by the main maritime powers, piracy remains a reality today slide 23

A definition of piracy is “the practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea, the act of attacking ships in order to steal from them.” Pirates are as old as the first boats crossing seas and oceans. slides 24-25

Very often, the increasing number of acts of piracy is linked to the weakness/ political, social and economic crisis of the coastal country, unable to protect and monitor its territorial waters. Its inhabitants are using piracy as a way to survive and to fight poverty and hunger (or they just want to earn money…)

The East coast of Africa along the Somalian coastlines was “famous” for its pirates because of the situation of Civil War in the country and because of the strategic and economic importance of the Hormuz strait. The Strait of Malacca is also another hotspot for piracy because of the massive number of boats crossing and the lack of control in the islands around.

4.4. The protection of the maritime environment as an increasingly important challenge for the world slide 26

4.4.1. Oceans and seas are facing numerous environmental issues

Main environmental issues slide 27: oil slick, waste in the oceans, global warming and climate refugees, overfishing and the destruction of many species.

The very dense traffic creates major risks of pollution of the sea because most of the boats (60%) are registered under a flag of convenience in Panama, Liberia, Cyprus…

Oil spills are also a major source of pollution

Oil spills are one of the main factors that cause long term adverse effects on marine life. The spills take months to clean up and can result in the death of thousands of marine animals and birds. It has been found out that, despite all cleaning efforts, a considerable amount of oil remains in the area affected by the spill, causing long term environmental problems.

Furthermore, the use of dispersants in an attempt to reduce the amount of oil left in the ocean, actually causes the oil to break down into smaller components, which pose even a greater threat for ocean life, as they find their way into the food chain, gradually poisoning the environment. Oil spills have also played a significant role in near extinction of several species of fish and marine animals. For example, Atlantic bluefin tuna and dwarf seahorse became nearly extinct as a result of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The two worst oil spills: slide 28

· Kuwait in 1991: The largest oil spill occurred in Kuwait during the Gulf war on 19 January 1991. It was a deliberate act by the Iraqi forces as they opened oil valves to slow down the advance of American troops. Around 330 million gallons of oil were spilled on to the sea.

· Gulf of Mexico, 2010 slides 29-30: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana in 2010, the largest marine oil spill in history, caused by an April 20, 2010, explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

The petroleum that had leaked from the well before it was sealed formed a slick extending over more than 149,000 square km of the Gulf of Mexico. To clean oil from the open water, 1.8 million gallons of dispersants—substances that emulsified the oil, thus allowing for easier metabolism by bacteria—were pumped directly into the leak and applied aerially to the slick. Booms to corral portions of the slick were deployed, and the contained oil was then siphoned off or burned. As oil began to contaminate Louisiana beaches in May, it was manually removed; more difficult to clean were the state’s marshes and estuaries, where the topography was knit together by delicate plant life. By June, oil and tar balls had made landfall on the beaches of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. In all, an estimated 1,100 miles (1,770 km) of shoreline were polluted.

Residents and the fishing and tourism industries were massively impacted as fishing was forbidden in these areas for several months. Also, tourists did not come to face the prospect of petroleum-sullied beaches. The estimated costs associated with cleanup and recovery was around $40 billion.

The rising demand of fish around the world leads to overfishing: around 40% of the oceans are impacted by a non-renewable use of their resources, and over 35% of the fish resources are overfished.

Overfishing occurs when fish populations are unacceptably reduced due to human fishing activities. This can prove disastrous for fish species as well as fishing-dependent coastal communities, not to mention the effect on the marine ecosystem. While some criticize the taste and life quality of farm-raised fish (aquaculture), this may be a better, more sustainable option for fish-eating consumers concerned about the environment.

Some communities dependent on the resource are already greatly impacted by the lack of fish as can be seen in Japan, eastern Canada, New England, Indonesia and Alaska.

The anchovy fisheries off the coast of western South America have already collapsed and with numbers dropping violently from 20 million tons to 4 million tons—they may never fully recover. Other collapses include the California sardine industry, the Alaskan king crab industry and the Canadian northern cod industry slide 31. In Massachusetts alone, the cod, haddock and yellowtail flounder industries collapsed, causing an economic disaster for the area.

Pollution in the oceans is massive and has created a new continent, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch slide 32

A huge, swirling pile of trash in the Pacific Ocean is growing faster than expected and is now three times the size of France. According to a three-year study published in Scientific Reports Friday, the mass known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch first discovered in 1997 by oceanographer Charles Moor is about 1.6 million square kilometers in size -- up to 16 times bigger than previous estimates. That makes it more than double the size of Texas.

Ghost nets, or discarded fishing nets, make up almost half the 80,000 metric tons of garbage floating at sea slide 33, and researchers believe that around 20% of the total volume of trash is debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami.

Climate change has contradictory impacts on the seas and oceans: slide 34

- It allows some straits and areas to become navigable such as in the Arctic.

- It threatens the life of millions of people because of the rise of the sea level, mainly for the ones living on the main coastal cities: around 280 Million people according to the IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (= GIEC in French)

Example of Climate refugees or climate migrants

Climate refugees or climate migrants are a subset of environmental migrants who were forced to flee "due to sudden or gradual alterations in the natural environment related to at least one of three impacts of climate change: sea-level rise, extreme weather events, and drought and water scarcity."

Since 2008, an average of 24 million people have been displaced by catastrophic weather disasters each year. As climate change worsens storms and droughts, climate scientists and migration experts expect that number to rise.

Meanwhile, climate impacts that unravel over time, like desert expansion and sea level rise, are also forcing people from their homes: A World Bank report in March projects that within three of the most vulnerable regions — sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America — 143 million people could be displaced by these impacts by 2050.

In Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands of people are routinely uprooted by coastal flooding, many making a treacherous journey to the slums of the capital, Dhaka. It's a problem in the United States as well. An estimated 2,300 Puerto Rican families displaced by Hurricane Maria are still looking for permanent housing, while government officials have spent years working to preemptively relocate more than a dozen small coastal communities in Alaska and Louisiana that are disappearing into the rising sea.

4.2.2. Marine protected areas are created to protect seas and oceans slide 35

These marine protected areas are created by governments, under the pressure of NGOs, to allow the resilience of the maritime environment with fishes reproducing and their number growing (rebuilding of the stocks of fishes).

Today, only 6% of the world’s oceans are protected in implemented and actively managed marine protected areas. Approximately half of that, or 2.5%, of the ocean is highly protected in no-take marine reserves. slide 36

The Convention of biological diversity adopted at the Earth Summit in 1992 targeted 10% for 2020. According to the WWF, about 1/3 of the seas and oceans should be protected to preserve the resources and allow the stock of fishes to be rebuilt.

One example:

The Great Barrier Reef slide 37, the world's second-largest protected area (after northeast Greenland!), is a model of integrated and multiple-use management, allowing sustainable utilization of the reef by a wide range of users. The marine park stretches over 3,000km (1,800 miles) almost parallel to the Queensland coast. The reef, between 15 kilometers and 150 kilometers offshore and around 65 Km wide in some parts, is a gathering of brilliant, vivid coral. A closer encounter with the Great Barrier Reef's impressive coral gardens reveals many astounding underwater attractions including the world's largest collection of corals (in fact, more than 400 different kinds of coral), coral sponges, mollusks, rays, dolphins, over 1,500 species of tropical fish, more than 200 types of birds, around 20 types of reptiles including sea turtles and giant clams over 120 years old.

CCL: Seas and oceans, between appropriation, protection and the freedom of movement slide 38

Maritime areas are key to globalization

- Seas and oceans are deeply integrated into the globalization process by the constant flows of people, data and mainly goods between the main maritime façades and megalopolises of the Extended Triad, but also with some emerging countries: maritimization (increasing exploitation of the maritime resources and growing part of the maritime trade linked to globalization) is strongly linked to globalization

- About 80% of the world trade is done through the seas and oceans. Containerization increased the competitiveness of maritime transport. Maritime roads are linking the main maritime facades through strategic traits and canals.

- Fishing resources are unevenly exploited, but about 35% of the fishing stocks are overfished. Offshore oil and gas represent about 30% of the world production and the potential for renewable energies is increasingly recognized and exploited. However, seabed mineral mining is slowly emerging but remains marginal.

The appropriation of the seas and oceans is clearly a source of conflicts

- The UNCLOS (Montego Bay Convention signed in 1982) regulates the use of the seas and oceans. The sovereignty of a State is complete in its territorial waters, but the sovereignty is only economic in the EEZ. The high sea does not belong to anyone.

- The territorialization (economic and political appropriation of some maritime areas by some countries) of the seas and oceans is a constant source of conflicts, mainly because of the overlapping EEZs in the East China Sea, or because of the desire to extend them (in the Arctic Sea or in the South China Sea). The appropriation of some maritime territories is conflicting with a key principle, freedom of movement. Maritime powers (US, France, China…) are locating some of their navies and resources on some key strategic areas such as the Indian Ocean.

- Even if they are constantly threatened by a growing number of environmental issues, only a very limited percentage of the seas and oceans are protected today.

Activity #8 slide 39: Fill in the final document summarizing the key aspects of the lesson

Theme 1 - Seas, Oceans at the core of Globalization Notes | Knowt (2024)