Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 51, no. 3, June–July 2009, pp. 13–18
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In March 2009 the Chinese conducted bold and dangerous manoeuvres against the USNS Impeccable, a US Navy military survey vessel operating about 120 kilometres from the island of Hainan in the South China Sea. Five Chinese government vessels, including a Navy intelligence-collection ship, a Bureau of Maritime Fisheries patrol vessel, a State Oceanographic Administration patrol vessel, and two small Chinese-flagged trawlers, surrounded and blocked the transit of the US vessel in international waters. In an odd turn, a Chinese vessel approached within 8 metres of the American ship in an attempt to cut its towed array; when the Impeccable engaged the Chinese vessel with fire hoses to repel it, the Chinese crew stripped to their underwear. The event marks the first test of the Obama administration regarding China’s efforts to reshape the legal regime that applies to the littoral zone under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. Beijing provoked a similar crisis early in 2001 at the start of President George W. Bush’s first term, when a Chinese interception of an American EP-3 surveillance aircraft flying in international airspace over the East China Sea caused a mid-air collision and the loss of the Chinese fighter jet and pilot, and required an emergency landing of the US aircraft on Hainan. ‘Innocent passage by naval vessels from other countries in the territorial waters in the special economic zone is acceptable, but not allowed otherwise’, a senior spokesman in Beijing stated after the March 2009 incident.
Challenges in the littoral
Maritime security challenges are increasingly unfolding in the littoral: Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps small-boat swarms in the Strait of Hormuz; Somali brigands preying on merchant shipping in the Gulf of Aden; terrorists infiltrating India to traumatise Mumbai; illicit weapons flowing into the Palestinian territories. Around 75% of the planet’s population lives within 100 miles of a coast and more than half the world’s known oil reserves are located in the littoral. Moreover, 90% of world trade is conducted by sea. More and more, navies must conduct maritime security and expeditionary operations in near-shore areas, especially the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of coastal states. The US Military Sealift Command routinely moves large quantities of fuel, ammunition and supplies in bulk to overseas locations, usually by commercial surface carriers that may not have sovereign immune status.
Littoral operations can require sustained periods underway without nearby bases or ports. The United States has taken notice: in November 2008, the Navy’s first littoral combat ship, the USS Freedom, was commissioned, developed to engage close-to-shore threats with mine, antisubmarine and surface warfare as well as perform humanitarian operations and maritime interdictions. Expeditionary operations are largely driven by the status of the waters in which they are conducted; without appropriate access for these transits, the cost of such delivery rises.
But some coastal states are challenging the traditional interpretation of the law of the sea, weakening navigational freedom in the region most essential for the maintenance of international maritime security. In recent years, China has led a...
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Commander James Kraska, US Navy, is a professor of International Law at the Naval War College, a guest investigator at the Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and previously served as the oceans policy adviser for the Director of Strategic Plans & Policy, Joint Chiefs of Staff. The views are those of the author and do not represent the official policy or position of the US Department of Defense.
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