China 'challenging' laws of the sea
China wants to extend its sovereignty
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Saturday, 13, Jun 2009 08:22
The Chinese government is slowly but surely extending its sovereignty over waters as far as 200 nautical miles from its mainland, an expert has warned.
Commander James Kraska of the US Navy, a professor at the US' Naval War College, has warned in the latest edition of the International Institute of Strategic Studies' journal Survival his country must respond if existing international law is not to be undermined.
The 1982 Law of the Sea Convention laid out a series of areas extending out from the mainland, including territorial waters at 12 nautical miles out and the exclusive economic zone, extended 200 nautical miles out.
The latter is known as the littoral and gives the state in question sole exploitation rights over all natural resources contained within it.
"In recent years, China has led a group of… states seeking to transform exclusive economic zones from simple areas of resource rights and jurisdiction into something akin to territorial seas, restricting foreign military operations in more than one-third of the world's ocean area through assertions of sovereignty, creation of security zones and strict environmental regulations purporting to manage marine pollution," Cmdr Kraska warned.
March 2009 saw a standoff between five Chinese government vessels and the USNS Impeccable, a US Navy military survey vessel operating in the South China Sea, demonstrating these tensions.
The Impeccable was forced to repel one Chinese vessel with fire hoses after it approached within 8m of it.
This behaviour would be less of a problem, Cmdr Kraska argued, if it were not for the increasing significance of the littoral area in maritime security terms.
Small-boat swarms by Iran in the "Straits of Hormuz", Somali piracy and weapons-smuggling into the Palestinian territories are among the increasing needs of littoral forces.
And there is evidence the US Navy is taking notice: in November 2008 it commissioned the USS Freedom, a vessel commissioned especially for littoral operations.
After the March 2009 incident a Beijing spokesman said that "innocent passage by naval vessels from other countries" was acceptable in the EEZ, "but not allowed otherwise".
Cmdr Kraska accused China of engaging in a deliberate 'sea-denial strategy' aimed at revising what had been accepted norms.
"The goal is to renegotiate the essential bargain of the Law of the Sea Convention through a patient, persistent effort at reinterpretation," he claimed.
A failure to respond to these piecemeal attempts will lead to conclusions by the Chinese and others that they can escape with these reinterpretations unchallenged.
Cmdr Kraska concluded: "The US response needs to involve not just new ships for littoral operations, but also strengthened international collaboration and enhanced legal and policy development."