Isaac B. Kardon, Author at Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative

The Other Gulf of Tonkin Incident: China’s Forgotten Maritime Compromise

By Isaac B. Kardon | October 21, 2015 | Categories: China, South China Sea, Vietnam

China has nine maritime neighbors (including Taiwan) but no settled maritime boundaries, due in part to China’s unwillingness to specify its maritime claims. Only one partial exception to this imprecision exists: a boundary agreement with Vietnam to delimit the northern part of the Gulf of Tonkin and a fishery agreement establishing a joint fishing regime […]

The Enabling Role of UNCLOS III in PRC Maritime Policy

By Isaac B. Kardon | September 11, 2015 | Categories: China, East China Sea, International Law, South China Sea

To what extent does the law of the sea influence PRC decisions about maritime policy? If there is any influence, does it on balance play a constraining or enabling role in Beijing’s decisionmaking in this domain? This brief, mostly conceptual article argues that the enabling effects are more significant. For Beijing, UNCLOS III functions to […]

Maritime Rights and Interests

By Isaac B. Kardon | July 16, 2015 | Categories: China, International Law, South China Sea

Long-standing disagreements concerning territorial sovereignty over the Spratly Islands lie at the core of the PRC’s maritime disputes in the South China Sea. The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan each claim sovereign title to some or all of the hundreds of features clustered in that vital waterway. Among the reasons for the recent intensity […]