With technology improving leaps and bounds since 2001 Hainan incident, BHO wouldn't need to call 15 times to get hold of his PRC counterpart like Dubya did back then. That's quite uplifting wouldn't you say?
China's SCS Strategy Thread
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
Brumby
Major
International law and long-standing State practice recognizes the right of all nations to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance operations beyond the territorial sea of any nation. UNCLOS addresses intelligence collection in only one article—Article 19(2)(c), which prohibits ships transiting the territorial sea in innocent passage to engage in “any act aimed at collecting information to the prejudice of the defence or security of the coastal State.” A similar prohibition does not appear in Part V of the Convention regarding the EEZ or in Part VII regarding the high seas. Under generally accepted principles of international law (the Lotus Principle) , any act that is not specifically prohibited in a treaty is permitted. Consequently, intelligence collection in the EEZ is permitted under Article 58 and Article 87 of UNLOS as a high seas freedom.
China’s argument that intelligence collection activities are per se a “threat or use of force” in violation of UNCLOS and the UN Charter is misplaced. UNCLOS Article 301 simply calls on States to “refrain from any threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State . . . .” Identical language is contained in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. UNCLOS, moreover, makes a clear distinction between “threat or use of force” on the one hand, and other military activities (including intelligence collection) on the other. Article 19(2)(a) governing innocent passage mirrors the language of UNCLOS Article 301 and Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, prohibiting ships in innocent passage from engaging in “any threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of the coastal State . . . .” The remaining subparagraphs of Article 19(2) go on to restrict other military activities in the territorial sea, including the limitations on intelligence collection in subparagraph 2(c) discussed above.(Note that a similar restriction applies to ships engaged in transit passage and archipelagic sea lanes passage. Articles 39 and 54 call on ships exercising the right of transit passage and archipelagic sea lanes passage to “refrain from any threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of States bordering the strait [or the archipelagic State] . . . .” UNCLOS, supra note 31, arts. 39 & 54.)
The separation of the two concepts—the use of force and intelligence collection—demonstrates that UNCLOS does not automatically equate one with the other. Intelligence collection, however else it may be characterized, is not necessarily a threat or use of force” under UNCLOS or the UN Charter.
This issue was considered by the UN Security Council following the shoot down of a U.S. U-2 spy plane by Soviet Air Defence Forces near Sverdlovsk in 1960.81 An effort by the Kremlin to have the UN body adopt a resolution that would have labelled all U.S. U-2 flights over Soviet territory as acts of aggression under the Charter was soundly defeated in the Security Council by a vote of 7 to 2 (with 2 abstentions), thereby confirming that peacetime intelligence collection is consistent with the UN Charter.( O.J. Lissitzyn, The Role of International Law and an Evolving Oceans Law, in ELEC-TRONIC RECONNAISSANCE FROM THE HIGH SEAS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 566 (R. Lillich & J. Moore eds. 1980) (Vol. 61, U.S. Naval War College International Law Studies).
Based on various provisions of UNCLOS, it is logical, to interpret the peaceful uses/purposes clauses as prohibiting only those activities which are not consistent with the UN Charter. It may be concluded accordingly that the peaceful purposes/uses clauses in Articles 88 and 301 do not prohibit all military activities [including intelligence collection] on the high seas and in EEZs, but only those that threaten or use force in a manner inconsistent with the UN Charter.
(Note: The above legal commentary credit primarily goes to the International Law Review articles and are not works of mine)
Presumably adequately addressed above.
If my understanding is correct, if you read article 60 and the following sub clauses, the reference to artificial islands and the 500m limitation is about restricting any construction to no more than 500 m. As such, China's reclamation is already in contravention of UNCLOS.
The terms of the convention is well known and so are US actions. If US behaves in a manner inconsistent with UNCLOS they should be taken to task. The reason why the US has not ratified it is well known and I do not wish to offer any defence of its actions. You or anyone is free to criticize the current state in any way you want.
I think the supposed rights and wrongs and legal basis of this situation have been argued to death. One thing is sure, if the US wants to proceed in this manner it will proceed, irrespective of how thin the pretext.
The question then is how exactly will any coming face off look?
I will leave it to others to describe the forces that the USN are likely to deploy, but clearly these will be mainly large surface war ships.
By return, I think I am confident in saying that the Chinese Navy will not predominantly use its larger vessels, but rely on its smaller ones. I think this is a standoff that will mainly rely on the type 056 and FAC's; the very type of naval vessels that this Island building programme will be intended to support.
IS Corvette vs Cruiser credible? Well yes. A hundred years ago, the ships hull size was a very real limiting factor to a ships gun size and by extension, its range and killing power. This is no longer necessarily true and a corvette can fire the same missiles as its bigger counterparts.
Any confrontation in the SCS is of course in China home turf and so it will be able to use its Islands and other assets to provide the Area Defence and Situational Awareness that the USN vessels will need to bring with them.
This is without any reference to the contribution possible from the PLAAF.
The question then is how exactly will any coming face off look?
I will leave it to others to describe the forces that the USN are likely to deploy, but clearly these will be mainly large surface war ships.
By return, I think I am confident in saying that the Chinese Navy will not predominantly use its larger vessels, but rely on its smaller ones. I think this is a standoff that will mainly rely on the type 056 and FAC's; the very type of naval vessels that this Island building programme will be intended to support.
IS Corvette vs Cruiser credible? Well yes. A hundred years ago, the ships hull size was a very real limiting factor to a ships gun size and by extension, its range and killing power. This is no longer necessarily true and a corvette can fire the same missiles as its bigger counterparts.
Any confrontation in the SCS is of course in China home turf and so it will be able to use its Islands and other assets to provide the Area Defence and Situational Awareness that the USN vessels will need to bring with them.
This is without any reference to the contribution possible from the PLAAF.
SamuraiBlue
Captain
So then I guess you have no quarrel in Japan placing a radar site and situating long range SAMs on Senkaku.
The door swing both ways you know.
I actually don't, if Japan is stupid enough to put about a hundred million USD dollar of goods on a tiny island like fish in a barrel, or china on the said islands... if such stupidity it is, it should be a welcome as it only means that the host nation is less well defended in case of war as they have have deployed their asset in known target-able areas
solarz
Brigadier
They can *try*....
Blackstone
Brigadier
I have no objections to Japan placing weapons, systems, or anything else on, under, or over any part of its territory. None whatsoever. Diaoyu islands, however, are Chinese land that Japan stole in 1895. Therefore, I have lots and lots and lots of problems with Japan doing anything with Daioyu islands, other than returning them to China. It is the just and right thing to do.
*******
Off Topic
SamaraiBlue, allow me to ask a serious question, and I hope to receive a serious reply. Would you or most Japanese you know want China to do the same things to Japan that it did to China, from the Meiji Restoration through 1945?
With all the focus on the SCS these days there has been practically no coverage on the Diaoyus/Senkakus, has that dispute been frozen again and security activities surrounding it pared down since Obama's pledge that the US will come to its defense on Japan's behalf? Or is there a new norm of competing patrols around them that we just don't hear about?
It is interesting to compare and contrast the SCS and ECS situations as the circumstances of each are the opposite for China.
The Diaoyus/Senkakus is much closer to mainland China than the main islands of Japan while the mid-distance Ryukyu islands are populated, under Japan's control, and parts of it, namely Okinawa, have an extremely large military presence of the US and Japan. On the other hand the Spratlys are much closer to some of the other claimants than China and it seems like China's extensive island building and combined civilian and military development plans aim to create a miniature Ryukyu islands parallel for itself there.
While China has the superior military among the SCS claimants it is the inferior military compared to combined Japan and US forces in the ECS. I would say China's military is barely equal to even just Japan's when it comes to the Diaoyus/Senkakus only because of the islands' proximity to China.
It is interesting to compare and contrast the SCS and ECS situations as the circumstances of each are the opposite for China.
The Diaoyus/Senkakus is much closer to mainland China than the main islands of Japan while the mid-distance Ryukyu islands are populated, under Japan's control, and parts of it, namely Okinawa, have an extremely large military presence of the US and Japan. On the other hand the Spratlys are much closer to some of the other claimants than China and it seems like China's extensive island building and combined civilian and military development plans aim to create a miniature Ryukyu islands parallel for itself there.
While China has the superior military among the SCS claimants it is the inferior military compared to combined Japan and US forces in the ECS. I would say China's military is barely equal to even just Japan's when it comes to the Diaoyus/Senkakus only because of the islands' proximity to China.
solarz
Brigadier
Another difference is that the Diaoyu Islands have little strategic value, but lots of propaganda value. The SCS islands are the exact opposite: high strategic value, but little propaganda value.
I think both sets of disputed islands and their surrounding waters are of high strategic value in the context of China. China controlling and/or developing them means it has forward areas away from the mainland to resist threats from the First Island Chain. Others controlling and/or developing them means threats to mainland China can emanate even closer than the First Island Chain, basically as close as possible right up to China's territorial waters.
The waters and islands within the First Island Chain are critical to China having a buffer to defend its prime real estate, its coastal regions. It is as important as Ukraine is to Russia, the Caribbean is to the US, the Ryukyus and Kurils are to Japan. The First Island Chain itself is the red line for China, it does not bode well at all that the US and Japan seem determined to push past it.