Now China
Wants All Subs in the South China Sea to Ask Permission, Surface, Show Flag
BY STEVE
MOLLMAN
FEBRUARY 21,
2017
Beijing's
proposed revisions to maritime law, if adopted, could set up a nuclear naval
confrontation with the United States in international waters China claims to
own.
Submarines
are designed with one primary aim: to travel underwater. But when it comes to foreign
vessels operating in the vast waters it claims, China doesn’t much like
that idea.
According to
state media reports posted
last week, Beijing is drafting a revision to the nation’s maritime
“traffic safety” law. While in Chinese waters, according to the
changes, any foreign submarine would be required to stay surfaced and display
its national flag. It would also need to get approval before entering Chinese
waters, and report to maritime management authorities. China would reserve the
right to bar or expel foreign ships deemed to threaten “traffic safety and
order.” Ships entering Chinese waters without approval could be fined more
than $70,000.
One big
problem: China claims nearly all of the contested South China Sea—with its
strategic shipping lanes, rich fishing grounds, and oil and gas deposits—as its
own territory, based on its nine-dash
line. That claim was shot
down last July by an international tribunal ruling under the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). But Beijing is
sticking with it.
Another
problem is that what most countries consider international waters, China views
more as territorial waters.
Under
prevailing international norms laid out by UNCLOS, a country’s territorial
sea extends out 12 nautical miles (22 km, 14 miles) from the coast. Here a
country is free to set laws and regulate use, though a foreign military vessel
can still make “innocent passage” whereby it does nothing threatening and
carries on its way.
After that is
a contiguous zone (another 12 nautical miles) where a nation can continue
setting some laws. Beyond that is the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Extending
out 200 nautical miles (370 km, 230 miles), the EEZ is considered to
be international waters under UNCLOS, though within it a nation has sole
rights to extract natural resources from the waters (for example, fish) and
below the seabed (including oil and natural gas).
China is
among a small group of nations that interprets UNCLOS to
mean (pdf, p. 16) it can regulate foreign military vessels within
its EEZ. Under the proposed rules revisions, foreign submarines would be
prohibited from serving their purpose well beyond China’s coastal waters and
throughout most of the South China Sea.
“China’s
waters are open to foreign ships as long as they do not damage the waters’
safety, order, or China’s sovereignty,” Yang Cuibai, a law professor at Sichuan
University, told
the Global Times. China, he added, should take the lead in establishing
legal order in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea.
According to the hawkish
tabloid, the revisions will take effect in 2020.
Beijing would
likely ignore any international rulings or statements against the new
regulations, just as it dismissed
the tribunal’s decision last July.
China
wouldn’t necessarily enforce its new rules immediately. In 2013, Beijing
declared an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea,
requiring foreign aircraft—even if in international airspace—to identify
themselves to Chinese authorities. The country has done
little to enforce the ADIZ, but establishing it was
an important first step that will make enforcement—when it
comes—somewhat easier for Beijing to justify.
Likewise, the
proposed submarine rules might go unenforced for years, until they are
eventually used as justification for interfering with foreign vessels.
Original post:
defenseone.com
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‘world’s largest navy’ by 2020: Here
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