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

By | 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 […]

China’s Navy Lobby and its Impact on PRC Maritime Sovereignty Policies

By | September 11, 2015 | Categories: China, East China Sea, Indo-Pacific Region, South China Sea
Introduction This paper assesses the influence of the PLA Navy (PLAN) and its affiliated individuals and organizations (referred to as the “PLAN Lobby” or “Navy Lobby”) on specific policies related to China’s “maritime sovereignty”.[1]  A lobby is a group of individuals who use direct or indirect means to collectively or individually advocate policy positions to […]

The Enabling Role of UNCLOS III in PRC Maritime Policy

By | 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 […]

China’s Maritime Rights Protection Leading Small Group—Shrouded in Secrecy

By | September 11, 2015 | Categories: China, East China Sea, South China Sea
  Foreign policy decisionmaking in China has always been opaque, but under Chinese Communist Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping, it has become even more cryptic. The strongest leader to come to power in more than two decades, Xi has concentrated power in his own hands and rarely vets foreign policy initiatives with the […]

Asia Pacific Maritime Security Strategy Roundtable

By , , , and | August 24, 2015 | Categories: South China Sea, Southeast Asia, Spratly Islands
AMTI has asked some of its favorite maritime strategists—BJ Armstrong, Scott Cheney-Peters, James Holmes, Peter Mattis, and Bryan McGrath— to weigh in on the Pentagon’s new Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy for Asia. What does the report contribute to existing US national security strategy, and does it meet the mandate set out in the NDAA? What […]

Anatomy of a Strategy

By | August 24, 2015 | Categories: ADIZ, China, Coast Guard, South China Sea, Southeast Asia, Spratly Islands, Strategy, United States
On August 20, The Department of Defense released its Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy.  Mandated by Section 1259 of the FY 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, the report outlines DOD’s strategy for maritime security in the region. On August 21, Assistant Secretary of Defense David Shear briefed the press on the new document. Team AMTI commends […]

Beijing’s Assurances Unpersuasive: A COC Can’t Wait

By | August 5, 2015 | Categories: ASEAN, China, South China Sea, Southeast Asia
At regional meetings in Kuala Lumpur this week, China attempted to reassure regional nations of its peaceful intentions and deflect attention from its destabilizing activities in the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea. Speaking to reporters, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Beijing had halted dredging sand to build artificial islands. “China […]

The Case for Japan’s Patrol in the South China Sea

By | July 29, 2015 | Categories: Japan, Military Exercises, South China Sea, Spratly Islands
Over the past few months, speculation about possible Japanese patrols in the South China Sea has attracted media attention. The United States’ 7th Fleet Commander welcomed such patrol by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), while Japan’s defense minister and top uniform officer responded cautiously but positively. Japan renounced all of its claims in the […]

Philippines’ Lopsided South China Sea Policy

By | July 29, 2015 | Categories: Philippines, South China Sea, Spratly Islands
More than any country in the region, the Philippines has sought to protect its territorial integrity through “lawfare” (legal warfare), taking China to the court over maritime disputes in the South China Sea. Perturbed by China’s growing assertiveness across disputed waters, evident in its expanded para-military patrols, massive reclamation activities, and regular military drills in […]

Patrolling International Skies: Understanding Joint Air Patrols

By | July 29, 2015 | Categories: Japan, Military Exercises, South China Sea, United States
In examining recent suggestions for joint patrolling of the South China Sea, analysts have tended to focus on the surface vessels of various nations’ coast guards and navies. Yet the flight of a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon hosting a CNN film crew over disputed waters in the South China Sea in May highlighted the potential […]

South China Sea Civilian Air Patrol Capability and the U.S.-Japan Alliance

By | July 29, 2015 | Categories: Japan, South China Sea, Spratly Islands
Increased tensions over China’s maritime sovereignty claims in the Western Pacific pose a challenge for the international system. A confrontation between China and Japan in the East China Sea continues mainly between Japan’s national coast guard ships and China’s government and civilian fishery vessels, but it seems to have reached a kind of moderate stalemate […]

China’s Airfield Construction at Fiery Cross Reef in Context: Catch-Up or Coercion?

By and | July 29, 2015 | Categories: China, South China Sea, Spratly Islands
Although China is not the first state to build an airstrip in the South China Sea, it is the first state to employ island-building technologies to transform a contested maritime feature into a military base that extends the reach of offensive military capabilities. Other countries have worked to project power to contested South China Sea […]

Why the Philippines’ Case Should Pass the Jurisdiction and Admissibility Tests

By | July 23, 2015 | Categories: China, International Law, Philippines, South China Sea
The Philippines has been widely applauded for bringing the first ever arbitration case relating to the South China Sea disputes before an UNCLOS Arbitration Tribunal, but it still needs to clear the three hurdles of jurisdiction, admissibility and merit. In other words, Manila needs to prove that its case falls within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction, that […]

The Philippines between Scylla and Charybdis at The Hague

By | July 15, 2015 | Categories: China, International Law, Philippines, South China Sea
The Annex VII arbitral tribunal heard oral arguments from the Philippines last week on the issues of jurisdiction and admissibility of claims in the case it launched against China. Despite high hopes placed on Manila’s cause, these issues remain the most formidable legal obstacles to be surmounted. While the Philippine Memorial has not been made […]

The Battle of The Hague: Philippines v. China in the South China Sea

By | July 15, 2015 | Categories: China, Philippines, South China Sea
The Philippines’ lawfare (legal warfare) against China has reached a critical juncture. More than two years after initiating compulsory arbitration against China, the Southeast Asian country faces the crucial task of proving that the Arbitral Tribunal, formed under the aegis of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), has the mandate […]

Taiwan’s Response to the Philippines-PRC South China Sea Arbitration

By | July 15, 2015 | Categories: China, International Law, Philippines, South China Sea, Taiwan
On December 8, 2014, the Chinese Embassy in the Netherlands deposited with the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the Registry for the South China Sea arbitral proceedings, a Note Verbale. The PCA was asked to forward the Position Paper of the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Matters of Jurisdiction in the […]

The Post-Hearing Reality in the South China Sea Arbitration Case

By | July 15, 2015 | Categories: China, International Law, Philippines, South China Sea
The Hague hearing on jurisdiction and admissibility of the South China Sea arbitration case has come to an end on July 13 after a weeklong process without China’s participation. The hearing has become a heated headline for medias, governments, and scholars for the past week. Questions include whether the Arbitral Tribunal will issue a decision […]

Sophistry and Bad Messaging in the South China Sea

By | July 1, 2015 | Categories: China, Malaysia, Philippines, South China Sea, Vietnam
Chinese authorities, as well as sympathetic writers, have in recent months sought to deflect criticism of China’s island-building campaign in the Spratlys by insisting that Beijing is merely copying what other claimants have done for years. According to this narrative, every claimant is as guilty as Beijing of altering the status of features in the […]

Vietnam and the Philippines: Spoke-to-Spoke Alliances in the South China Sea

By | July 1, 2015 | Categories: Philippines, South China Sea, Vietnam
As far as China’s designs in the South China Sea are concerned, there is little sign of compromise on the horizon.  Not only has China openly declared its commitment to “active defense” of its interests in adjacent waters, and also dangled the option of imposing an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the area, but […]

A Fair and Effective Code of Conduct for the South China Sea

By | July 1, 2015 | Categories: ASEAN, China, International Law, South China Sea
In 2002, ASEAN and China signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) that promised to “enhance favourable conditions for a peaceful and durable solution of differences and disputes among countries concerned.” Unfortunately, thirteen years on, the claimant countries are no closer to a solution for any of the […]

Diplomacy Changes, Construction Continues: New Images of Mischief and Subi Reefs

By | June 18, 2015 | Categories: China, Land Reclamation, South China Sea, Spratly Islands
On June 16, 2015, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang announced that “as planned, the land reclamation project of China’s construction on some stationed islands and reefs of the Nansha (Spratly) Islands will be completed in the upcoming days.” He went on to note that after land reclamation on existing features was complete, China would continue to […]

China’s Land Reclamation Announcement: A Change in Message, Not in Policy

By , , , and | June 17, 2015 | Categories: China, International Law, Land Reclamation, South China Sea
Q1: What has China announced about its land reclamation activities in the Spratly Islands? A1: On June 16, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced that “as planned, the land reclamation project of China’s construction on some stationed islands and reefs of the Nansha (Spratly) Islands will be completed in the upcoming days.” He noted […]

China’s Claims are Unambiguously Ambiguous

By | June 16, 2015 | Categories: China, International Law, Land Reclamation, South China Sea
In the first paragraph of his recent AMTI article, Zheng Zhihua essentially conflates two issues–questions of sovereignty over islands and questions of jurisdiction over resources and the boundaries delimiting them–when he says: A few international observers also accuse China of deliberately obscuring its territorial claims in the South China Sea by using terms not found […]