‘Maritime security issues should be settled thru negotiations, agreement’

By Vice Chairman Choe Nam-suk

Many maritime experts have pointed out the difference between mainland security and maritime one which lies in the fact that the conception of “utilization” is of greater importance than that of “possession”.

The South China Sea is a typical example. Besides its “nine-dash line” claim, China in August 2023 added a red line to the east of Taiwan. China’s claims are nothing new but simply a repeat of its previous ones, but it has carried out the “change of status quo by force”, especially the arrest of foreign fishing ships in 2019 and 2021, and the anchoring by more than 200 Chinese fishing ships in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in early 2021. It is obvious that China has acted in defiance of other claimants of sovereignty in the South China Sea, as well as international rule.

A review of the world history shows that the 19th century is called “Pax Britanica” and the 20th century, the “Pax Americana”. China can self-claim that the 21th century is of China.

There is an idea that China has become a power and, as a result, it is quite understandable that conflicts with neighboring have emerged and that having set a target of becoming a “marine power”, China has intensified its military power in the sea. The total tonnage of the ships China built in 3 years, from 2015 to 2018, is about 400,000 tons, doubling that by the US. China’s military spending is expected to amount to 206.8 billion USD by 2030, mostly for its navy at 57.1 billion USD.

There are two approaches to cope with “violence diplomacy”. First, the resort to the international legal system. The international community’s rules have been broadly recognized, so countries often ask China to abide by them as an entity that is changing the status quo in the South China Sea.

This approach is poorly effective, unless a large number of countries agree to maintain the upholding of international law. However, China blames the current international law as “taking the West as the center” and has in fact defied the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982).

The second, also called the “grey zone” approach, requires the sides to find out the ways to and to resolutely prevent China from deliberately adjusting or changing the current rules of the marine law, including the UNCLOS 1982. This is right to the regional countries and territories having territorial disputes or EEZ overlapping with China or interest in maintaining navigation and overflight in the South China Sea such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan, in the context that provisions on security and national defense are insufficient and China is continuing to change the status quo of the seas in dispute.

China has landed its military forces on Senkaku archipelagos and claimed sovereignty over the seas around Ieodo Island, the Republic of Korea, etc. Besides, it is also building military bases and even establishing an administrative entity in the South China Sea. In the current situation, this is a necessary response measure.

The largest difference in the perception of countries in the utilization of the oceans is that China advocates “increasing international seas”, allowing China to enter other countries’ territories in the pretext of “common management” while others set the target of “utilizing the marine space for the common purpose of the mankind”. In other words, China is trying to broaden the scope of “right to possession” of the oceans and violating the right to the “utilization” of the oceans of other states.

It can be explained that what China called “common management of the marine space” is to serve its attempt to possess the international marine space. First of all, marine space is different from mainland where the “right to possession” and “utilization” totally coincide.

It is divided into overlapped and non-overlapped zones. That is why it is necessary to closely watch to avoid misinterpretation of the term of “common management” which implies the “right to possession” and the “utilization” of the marine space.

Over the recent years, the South China Sea in particular and the Indo-Pacific in general have been seeing increasing conflicts on maritime rights and interests, as well as the risks of maritime accidents and troubles. Along with the globalization, the transport of passengers and cargo has become more vibrant and risks of maritime crimes are rising in various forms such as smuggling, piracy, terrorism, etc.

On the basis of perceiving that the maritime space plays the role of connecting the mainland areas where the people conduct their daily life activities such as the Indo-Pacific and the Asia-Pacific, that the maritime security issues are very important to bilateral relations with China and that the problems should be settled through negations and agreements, we should comprehensively study strategic issues to shape the international order, inclusive of the maritime space and the supply chain.

Japan, the Republic of Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and partly Taiwan are located in the north, the south and the east of China, but from the maritime perspective, they all have an interest in “connecting” to one another. This connectivity in terms of “maritime security”, is not so much different from the economic connectivity.

It is critical to apply the above-said approaches to cope with China’s calculation aimed at changing the status quo in the sea, thus ensuring the upholding of international law, maritime and overflight security and the peaceful settlement of the disputes in the South China Sea.