The fascinating question is what happens if China tries to back this up with force. The US would probably feel the need to intervene, but I’m sure most of South America would be more than a bit wary having American war ships in the area given what we’ve done down there. On the other hand, better than Chinese warships perhaps?
Isn't it pretty unlikely for them to try to use force to back up fishing boats secretly popping into Argentina's waters? That would be making a big noise to continue doing something that the fishing fleet was trying to do quietly, basically calling attention to their shady behavior. And wouldn't using force there be close to an invasion over one source of cheaper fish? That would be a really aggressive escalation, might alienate many countries, etc.
Surely China has bigger fish to fry (rimshot) with its foreign relations.
Argentina is a signatory of the Rio Treaty, as such any attack against Argentina would we considered an attack against the United States and most of the rest of South America.
That treaty is not worth much of anything these days, too much history has happened since then.
It's true that the US consider South America "their own backyard", but there is a web of complex relationships which makes it unlikely they would blindly help this or that country retaliate against actions from superpowers - short of somebody establishing permanent strategic bases that are direct threats to the US mainland.
Exactly. This very same treaty was invoked by Argentina when the Falklands/Malvinas war broke out to ask US for assistance against England, and it revealed as wet paper against real geopolitical alliances / calculations.
So mostly safe from violent retaliation. How important is their trade with China? If they impound Chinese fishing vessels (assuming they have a coast guard capaple of keeping up with this many intruders?) a loss of trade mught occur.
It's a yearly naval exercise conducted by many countries in the Pacific. In the event of a naval war with China, they would have to fight not only the US but Australia, Canada, Japan, Philippines, and countless other countries.
I was never questioning who would win a shooting war, I was questioning how the Argentinians would feel about it.
But if China did decide to project power, the question is not "would the US and its allies win a shooting war", the question is "will the US push back at all?"
No, it does not. Treaties require that the parties involved enforce them; like laws they become scraps of paper unless they’re backed up by the sovereign.
Which again returns to the original question; would the US push back, and how far would they go?
The US has many overseas bases in Latin America already... including a few of them in Argentina.
The Rio Pact, the yearly naval exercises, the overseas bases... and the historical precedent of the Monroe doctrine makes it very clear that the US doesn't want any outsiders messing around.
> Nobody in Argentina would buy Chinese products again, probably.
Sure, but would that really affect Chinese decision making? I imagine that a partial US boycott would have a much larger impact than a full boycott in Argentina. Their GDP is 32nd in the world according to Wikipedia.
