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One reason China may be so intent on controlling the South China Seas is that it needs the space for its growing underseas submarine fleet to adequately protect its nuclear deterrent and correct the strategic imbalance with the United States.
[ More ]China has come up with a sweetheart deal to break through India's resistance to its attempt to access the Indian Ocean. It is offering India an opportunity to participate in joint seabed mining in the ocean, which has strong potential of yielding expensive minerals.
[ More ]China's 'Jiaolong' deep-sea manned submersible returned from its maiden 118-day exploratory voyage to the Indian Ocean where it is reported to have discovered large deposits of precious metals like gold and silver.
[ More ]The author argues that the recent tension between U.S. and China over China's territorial claims could be eased if the U.S. were a party to UNCLOS.
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In a pointed rebuke of China, India strongly advocates adherence to the Law of the Sea as the best way to resolve disputes in the South China Sea.
[ More ]Newly analyzed satellite imagery shows the speed at which China is creating a land mass that could support a military force in a hotly dispute part of the South China Sea that is also claimed by other Asian nations.
[ More ]Climate change and the potential for the oil industry and shipping routes have encouraged governments in Beijing and Singapore to look to the Arctic.
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China is actively pursuing cooperation with Arctic countries and companies engaged in the development of Arctic oil and resources that can be mined.
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China's deep-sea manned submersible today carried out its first dive in the southwest Indian Ocean to look for deposits of copper, zinc and other precious metals.
[ More ]China’s position paper published on December 7, 2014 is one of the rare documents in which Beijing officially expressed its opinions on the issues in the South China Sea, but may be driving the US and ASEAN into a ‘juridical alliance.’
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This is precisely the position taken by Bao Shixiu, a Senior Fellow at the Academy of Military Sciences of the People's Liberation Army of China. In his critique of the U.S. 2006 National Space Policy (NSP), Bao advances the notion of vertical sovereignty with the following curious statement: "[t]he NSP declares that U.S. space systems should be guaranteed safe passage over all countries without exception (such as 'interference' by other countries, even when done for the purpose of safeguarding their sovereignty and their space integrity).201 However, the statement in the NSP to which Bao refers is not limited solely to U.S. space systems. It reads: "The United States considers space systems to have the rights of passage through and operations in space without interference." Thus, the rights recognized in the U.S. space policy are applicable to all space systems, which is compatible with the Outer Space Treaty. However, the principal concern vis-A-vis potential Chinese claims of vertical sovereignty over portions of space above their territory lies not with a claim of complete sovereignty, but rather with the assertion that satellite navigation above Chinese territory is subject to Chinese "consent and control" as articulated by Professor Cheng. This space sovereignty position is directly analogous to China's assertion of sovereignty over the airspace above its seaborne EEZ.2° Recall that China alleges that military reconnaissance missions constitute an abuse of overflight rights.205 China may easily adapt and extend this same position to the space domain, applying it to overflight by American military satellites passing over Chinese territory. 
Legal scholar Ren Xiaofeng summarizes Beijing's sensitivity to reconnaissance and military activities in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and its adjacent airspace this way: "Freedom of navigation and overflight does not include the freedom to conduct military and reconnaissance activities. These things [military reconnaissance activities] amount to forms of military deterrence and intelligence gathering as battlefield preparation." These activities in the EEZ, according to Ren, connote preparation to use force against the coastal state. When Ren refers to the "adjacent airspace," he includes outer space and space reconnaissance.207
China's ostensible military objective for such action is denial, "the temporary elimination of some or all of a space system's capability to produce effects, usually without physical damage.208 This legal argument, if ultimately successful, would have the strategic effect of rendering American military satellites useless and could establish a lawful predicate for Chinese military action against those satellites.209 Given its increased military expenditures for research and development of counterspace 21 technology, China could contemplate action that would effectively blind the United States with regard to Chinese military actions. International acquiescence or acceptance of Chinese assertions of vertical sovereignty would effectively vitiate national means of verification of compliance regarding any existing or new arms reduction treaties, and would render meaningless any proposal to ban or limit weapons in space.
Reliance on the absence of an explicit airspace-space demarcation ignores historical context by attempting to identify a minimum altitude at which space begins. In fact, there is no controversy that all current satellite orbits transit within the space domain.211 Irrespective of the demarcation argument, Articles I and II of the Outer Space Treaty (OST) expressly refute any conception of vertical sovereignty.212 Article I designates outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, as "the province of all mankind." This language has been universally understood to mean that "all nations have a nonexclusive right to use and explore space.213 Article II further prohibits in space any "national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." Thus, the OST clearly permits all uses of the space domain short of an appropriation by claim of sovereignty or the like.214
It therefore seems clear that the plain language of the OST prohibits any claim of vertical sovereignty in space. Sovereignty denotes supreme authority within a territory,2l5 "the right to command and correlatively the right to be obeyed," with the term "right" connoting legitimacy.216 Thus, a claim of sovereignty over space, or any portion thereof, seeks, in some measure, to extend a state's territorial sovereignty into the space domain.217 The holder of sovereignty derives its authority for sovereignty from some mutually acknowledged source of legitimacy.218 In space, the OST's explicit prohibition on appropriation removes the essential support for legitimate sovereignty.219
In this sense, the vertical sovereignty argument is akin to the 1976 Bogota Declaration that geostationary orbit was not part of outer space since its nature depends specifically on gravitational phenomena from earth.220 Thus, the Declaration further argued, those portions of geostationary orbit directly above equatorial states are sovereign territory of those states rather than part of outer space.221 The international community rejected this argument222 Likewise, it should reject the vertical sovereignty argument.
Having long recognized the efficacy of legal "securitization" claims as a mechanism through which to bolster regional sea control, China has apparently developed an effective strategy in furtherance of its objective." This strategy rests upon China's UNCLOS stance and includes declaratory statements incorporated into China's UNCLOS ratification depository instrument and includes domestic legislation formally claiming security interests in its territorial seas and EEZ, development of supporting legal scholarship, and a complementary strategic communications campaign.12 As China gradually works to set conditions conducive to marginalizing U.S. influence in the East, Southeast, and South Asia regions, its dramatic economic growth will likely further boost its ability to influence the behavior of smaller regional neighbors in a manner consistent with China's UNCLOS "securitization" narrative. The absence of a formal U.S. commitment to UNCLOS is yet an additional vulnerability China can exploit in inducing its neighbors' to acquiesce in its territorial seas and EEZ claims. Such acquiescence would strengthen China's ability to claim territorial sea sovereignty over vast swaths of the East and South China Seas, seriously hampering the United States' ability to project military power in the region.
Further evidence of a multi-pronged strategy can be inferred from China's operational military efforts to reinforce its ultra vires UNCLOS positions. Specifically, China has, on occasion, engaged in illegal, unsafe airborne and seaborne tactical maneuvers in an attempt to dissuade the United States from conducting military operations-principally, military survey power in the region. it has occasionally demonstrated a willingness to employ military force in operations and intelligence collection-within the Chinese EEZ. Additionally, support of its contested claims to sovereignty over certain offshore islands. short, by pressing contested claims to maritime territorial sovereignty while simultaneously pursuing aggressive military tactics in support of ultra vires security rights in offshore waters, China has demonstrated an efficacious strategy to consolidate control over the vast majority of the South and East China Seas. Toward this end, China has the advantage of operating from interior lines-both geographically and rhetorically vis a vis the United States, due both to its status as an UNCLOS member nation and a state attempting to regulate the waters adjacent to its coast. Thus, to the extent the United States seeks to project a maritime military presence in a manner inconsistent with China's UNCLOS stance, China may gain some traction domestically, as well as internationally, by criticizing the United States as an imperialistic power seeking to threaten and provoke a distant, peace-loving nation in the waters adjacent to its coast. U.S. UNCLOS abstention will continue to facilitate China's ability to cast U.S. UNCLOS interpretation as self-serving and disingenuous by highlighting that the United States is seeking to extract the benefit of UNCLOS butt avoiding membership due to its distrust ofthe international community. It is not inconceivable that such a narrative would resonate with many coastal states, especially if the United States' relative regional and global primacy is seen to be diminishing. All else equal, nations with vulnerable coasts and small fleets might perceive an UNCLOS "securitization" norm as more attractive than the current, generally-accepted norm permitting robust military operations within EEZs and almost unrestricted innocent passage through territorial waters. Furthermore, as an UNCLOS member nation, China remains better positioned than the United States to influence UNCLOS interpretation from within UNCLOS regulatory institutions such as the ISA, ITLOS, and CLCS.
This study attempts to fill this gap by uncovering why China’s coercive diplomacy took the form it did in the case of the March 2009 Impeccable incident in which five Chinese vessels shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in close proximity to the US Naval Ship (USNS) Impeccable in contravention to accepted naval practice.5 At the time of the encounter, the Impeccable was approximately 75 nautical miles southeast of the Chinese Sanya Naval Base, in the international waters of the South China Sea, but inside China’s claimed Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).6 Chinese leaders most likely believed that the Impeccable was gathering underwater acoustical data that could help track Chinese submarines located nearby and opposed such surveil- lance activities.7 Two of the five ships involved, Chinese-flagged fishing trawlers, came within 50 feet of the US ship and the crew attempted to snag the ship’s towed acoustic array sonar. After hours of confrontation, the Impeccable was eventually able to leave the area and an American destroyer, the USS Chung-Hoon, was sent to provide additional protection. Though the Chinese government publicly denied any role in organizing the actions of the Chinese vessels, the fact that the Chinese ships involved included a navy intelligence collection ship, a Bureau of Maritime Fisheries patrol vessel, and a State Oceanographic Administration patrol vessel, calls this into question.9 Furthermore, the fact that the Chinese sailors knew what the towed array sonar looked like as well as its purpose suggests instruction.
Last, even though China presented its position in legal terms to counter and undermine the US and avoid international backlash, the main goal of Chinese coercive diplomacy is to compel the US to stop conducting surveillance activities near sensitive military areas. A review of Chinese writings reveal that it is displeased with US intelligence gathering more generally, even when the platforms are not located in China’s claimed EEZ.97 However, there are long-term implications of any US concessions on this issue. Yielding to pressure may affect China’s future expectations of the effectiveness of the use of military provocation vis-a` -vis the US, which may lead to increases in bilateral tensions and threats to regional security. In the words of Schelling, ‘to yield may be to signal that one can be expected to yield.’98 Furthermore, the regional allies and strategic partners that are hedging their bets against the possibility of US disengagement from the region may interpret compliance with Chinese demands as a lack of US resolve. This would affect the strategic calculations of regional players, especially on how to prioritize their relationships with the US and China.99 Concessions also give legitimacy to China’s EEZ position and potentially to some of China’s territorial claims, which would shift the status quo in a way that is harmful to regional stability. According to Peter Dutton, ‘China’s efforts to alter the balance of maritime rights are part of its overall anti-access strategy, and could have an impact on the perceived legitimacy of US operations in the region, especially in times of crisis.’100 To avoid this, the US needs to maintain its commitment to a strong regional presence and the preservation of freedom of the sea.
In addition, official US statements in the future need to challenge Chinese assertions that China’s position has a legal basis, whereas the US position is merely derived from its hegemonic interests. The US should encourage all countries that value its position on international maritime law or just want to discourage Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea to openly support the US position. According to the Department of Defense Maritime Claims Reference Manual, of the 150 states with maritime claims, 127 states recognize the right of all states to undertake military activities in the EEZ and only 22 side with China by making some form of claim to regulate foreign military activities in their EEZ.94 Joint statements made with Asian leaders and with leaders of developing countries supporting the US interpretation of EEZ rights would weaken China’s argument that the US position hurts the interests of the less powerful. Moreover, China tends to cooperate more with broad international efforts than with unilateral US efforts.95 The US should consider addressing China’s position on UNCLOS and related provocative behavior in multilateral forums such as the United Nations and encouraging regional allies to bring up the issue through regional institutions such as ASEAN. In that regard, the Obama administration’s recent offer to facilitate multilateral talks between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors about the territorial status of islands in the South China Sea is a step in the right direction.
But the Americans have forgotten one thing. China is not so easy to bully . . . They will not trade with anybody their state sovereignty or national dignity under any circumstances. They are like that on the problem of Tibet; they are like that on the problem of the South China Sea. On matters involving state sovereignty, China does not budge.