The Convention in Operation

2021 ◽  
pp. 175-207
Author(s):  
David Bosco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Regional Organizations ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Chinese Military ◽  
Special Rights

Post–Cold War ocean diplomacy appeared promising, particularly in the Arctic. Countries in the region negotiated maritime boundaries and cooperated on environmental concerns. Globally, several new maritime organizations took shape, including a tribunal and an organization to manage the deep seabed. Many countries proved eager to get more undersea territory, and they assembled legal claims to large areas of the continental shelf. These developments were accompanied by increased tension in the South China Sea, where China asserted special rights. Its moves provoked tension with other countries, including the United States. A collision between US and Chinese military aircraft highlighted the risks. The new legal framework for the oceans was tested in other ways, including through boarding operations and moves by countries to keep dangerous vessels far away from their coasts. The effort to control fishing activities continued and featured both dramatic high-seas chases and quiet negotiations by regional organizations.

Continuity in Indonesia’s Strategy in the South China Sea Under Joko Widodo

2021 ◽  
pp. 234779702110393
Author(s):  
Angguntari C. Sari
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South China Sea ◽  
The South ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
China Sea ◽  
Chinese Military

This study seeks to address two interrelated questions: Does Indonesia underbalance against China? Why does President Joko Widodo stick with the strategy of to this day? The study lays out three main arguments. First, there are two types of strategies: the appropriate and inappropriate one (under-balancing). Indonesia, under the first and beginning of the second term of Jokowi presidency, adopts the prudent strategy. Thus, it does not underbalance against the Chinese military threats in the South China Sea. Such prudent strategy consists of several dimensions: facilitating the United States’ security presence in Asia, engaging major powers such as China in bilateral and multilateral economic and political–military ties to socialise China into a peace-loving country. Second, Indonesia’s non-balancing action, which is the second-best strategy after a more traditional direct internal and external military balancing, is considered a prudent choice, for three main reasons: (a) it is predicated on the assessment that China is perceived as a risk-averse limited-aims revisionist power; (b) Indonesia has very limited capacity to directly balance China and (c) the United States is perceived to be willing and able to balance China. Lastly, the continuity of this strategy, which started during the post-Cold War era, is partly related to the positive feedback effects or self-reinforcing process of existing formal institutions.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 242-248
Author(s):  
David Bosco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Regional Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
Complex Hybrid ◽  
National Governments

The disagreement between China and the United States over maritime rights in the South China Sea has become the leading maritime point of friction. But that dispute is just one part of more fundamental change at work in how the world governs the oceans, one that has moved away from the idea of freedom of the seas. A central question is whether the UN Convention’s compromise on the oceans can endure. The Convention increased national sovereignty over parts of the oceans but also created mechanisms of international control. What emerged from that compromise is a complex, hybrid system of governance that relies on national governments but also a variety of international and regional organizations and international courts. Part of that compromise is a narrower version of freedom of the seas, but pressure from multiple directions is rendering even a limited version of that long-standing doctrine increasingly fragile.

System Under Strain

2021 ◽  
pp. 208-241
Author(s):  
David Bosco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South China Sea ◽  
The South ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Seabed Mining ◽  
Special Rights ◽  
Complicated Situation

Seabed mining became more active as companies invested in technologies to harvest valuable minerals. Momentum toward commercial mining would test directly the idea of international control of ocean space. The industry’s prospects also revived attention to whether the United States might join the Convention, and the Obama administration pushed to secure ratification. That effort failed, mostly because of conservative concerns about the internationalization of the seabed. Washington’s continued refusal to join the Convention created a complicated situation in which the leading maritime power claimed to defend maritime rules but was outside the Convention. From inside the Convention, China and Russia both challenged maritime rules. Both countries rejected international rulings critical of their maritime behavior. Despite an international ruling, China continued its efforts to secure special rights in the South China Sea, and the United States responded by increasing its naval activities in the area and conducting more freedom of navigation operations.

Nuclear weapons complicate South China Sea disputes

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
Hainan Island ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The South China Sea ◽  
The South ◽  
Content Type ◽  
China Sea

Significance However, China's navy already has an operational sea-based nuclear deterrent based on Hainan Island. The deployment of nuclear-armed submarines, and their need to reach the mid-Pacific to threaten the continental United States, makes the South China Sea an arena not just of maritime disputes but of US-China military rivalry. Impacts The strategic importance of the Philippines, Taiwan and Singapore to the United States will increase. A new defence agreement with the Philippines will, as of last month, support US military activities in the area. Washington will encourage greater Japanese involvement in the South China Sea; as long as Shinzo Abe is prime minister, Japan will oblige.

China’s “Militarisation” in the South China Sea: Three Target Audiences

2016 ◽  
Vol 08 (02) ◽  
pp. 15-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng-Chwee KUIK
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South China Sea ◽  
The South ◽  
Secondary Target ◽  
China Sea ◽  
Main Target

If “militarisation” is defined as an act of deploying military assets to pursue wider strategic ends, then all players of the South China Sea disputes have engaged in some forms of militarisation. China’s militarisation reflect three layers of target audiences: the United States (the main target), regional countries (the secondary target) and its domestic audience. Beijing’s growing anxieties over US rebalancing and the arbitration ruling have paradoxically pushed it to accelerate its “militarisation” activities.

A Rupture in Philippine-U.S. Relations: Geopolitical Implications

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 1049-1053
Author(s):  
Alfred W. McCoy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
South China ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Character ◽  
The People ◽  
International Court ◽  
Chinese Trade

“Your honors, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States … both in military, but economics also,” said Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte to a burst of applause from an audience of officials in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, the symbolic seat of China's ruling Communist Party. At the Philippine-Chinese trade forum that same day, October 20, 2016, Duterte opened his speech by asking, “What is really wrong with an American character?” Americans are, he continued, “loud, sometimes rowdy, and they have this volume of their voice … not adjusted to civility…. They are the more forward commanding voice befitting obedience.” Evoking some deep Filipino racialist tropes, Duterte then mocked the flat, nasal American accent and rued the time he was questioned at the Los Angeles airport by a “Black” officer with a “black” uniform, “black shoes,” and a “black” gun. Moving from rhetoric to substance, Duterte quietly capitulated to Beijing's relentless pressure for bilateral talks to settle the dispute over the South China Sea, virtually abrogating Manila's recent slam-dunk win on that issue before an international court (Demick and Wilson 2016; DU30 News 2016).

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