The Abstracts of Vol.6,2015
Releasing Time：11.16.2014Source：
The South China Sea and International Law——The Perspective of Japanese Scholars
Sun Zhankun
In recent years, with increasing tension over the South China Sea issue, international law scholars of Japan have started paying attention to the legal problems involved. Their approach is one that sees the issue as an “international maritime dispute,” disregarding its other important aspect as a “territorial dispute.” Under the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Japanese scholars have been engaged in legal analysis of each concerned country, with special emphasis on China's related laws and actions. With their tendency to disregard the historical background of the South China Sea issue and the process of the birth of the Nine-Dash Line, the analyses of many Japanese scholars have been characterized by harsh criticism on China. However, the search for a peaceful, impartial settlement of the dispute should be based on the spirit of knowing both sides of the argument, and that means listening carefully to Japanese scholars’views.
Evolution of Japan’s South China Sea Policy and Its Implications
Yang Guanghai
Japan is not a party to the South China Sea dispute, but is deeply involved in it. Japan’s policy concerning this maritime region originates from its territorial expansionist appetite which was bred after the island state accomplished its unification at the end of the 16th century. This policy has evolved over a long period of history and undergone periodic changes, i.e., commercial invasion and military occupation during the imperialist era, reluctant abandonment and neutrality during the Cold War era, and re-involvement in the dispute in a new manner since the end of the Cold War. What merits notice is that its involvement has been intensified to an unprecedented level for the past few years. A review of the history shows that Japan’s involvement is driven by multiple factors. Its utmost aim is to prevent China from gaining sovereign control and jurisdiction over the disputed islands and their surrounding waters, though other motives are also at play. The actual impact of Japan’s intervention is limited, but the negative consequences cannot be overlooked. Although Japan has a strong preference for heightened involvement, it is faced with numerous constraints as well.
Japan’s Ocean Concept and the Ocean Strategy Collision between China and Japan
Hou Angyu
In the course of modernization, Japan treated the sea as her lifeline, and made full use of the sea state qualifications. The Japanese concept of ocean has its distinct characteristics: strong marine national consciousness to impulse the "China Threat Theory"; believing in the theory of sea power, its new "Southward progress" and China's "East launch" composing the cross confrontation; keeping obvious marine psychological advantage and holding the traditional strategy of pre-emptive first strike; having a strong marine geopolitical thinking, being clever at alliance with power to be power. These characteristics take the opposition between land and sea as the logical starting point, which once provoked the war of aggression against China, and lead to the marine strategy collision between China and Japan at the moment. Such collision is the contest of strength, is the race of wisdom; it is also the competition of the national character and the moral tension.
A Research on the Foreign Military Activities in China’s Jurisdiction for Effective Measures in the Perspective of International Law
Yu Zhirong
With foreign vessels driving into China’s jurisdiction sea area without China’s authority, they are always trespassing China’s legal rights. However, countries and states have different understandings about the international law, and especially, it is difficult to define whether the foreign vessels’ activities in the jurisdiction sea area are trespassing the country’s legal rights, thus until now the coastal countries have not set out a package of measures on the foreign vessels’ activities in their jurisdiction sea area. Taking the USA ocean surveillance ship “Impeccable” entering the East China Sea without China’s authority, and the Japanese helicopter destroyer Yudachi’s illegal activities in the South China Sea as examples, the paper tries to define the nature of their activities in China’s jurisdiction sea area from the perspective of the international law to draw up effective measures. In many situations in the past, the American vessels and the Japanese vessels have trespassed China’s benefits and rights in a flagrant way, however, China have not analyze the problems from the perspective of the maritime international law and take the weapon of the law to protect the legal benefits and rights of China. On the contrary, China often have led by them and finally fallen into the traps. By analyzing in the perspective of law, we can reveal the fact that the American “Impeccable” and the Japanese “Yudachi” entering China’s jurisdiction sea area without authority are illegal activities. Once we can reveal the fact, we can ask them to take the responsibilities. In conclusion, to maintain China’s maritime benefits and rights, we should learn to take the weapon of the international law, fighting with wits and courage, and take the initiative of fighting.
The Latest Development of Measures to Combat IUU Fishing under International Law：FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Flag State Performance
Shih-Ming Kao Yunglung Lee
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is one of the most serious challenges faced by fisheries management on the high seas. However, primary responsibilities to regulate high seas fisheries still reside with flag States. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) thus adopted the Voluntary Guidelines for Flag State Performance (the Guidelines). The Guidelines contain recommended approaches to encourage and help flag states comply with their international duties and obligations regarding the flagging and control of fishing vessels. They also presented possible actions to encourage compliance and deter non-compliance by flag states. Last but not the least, the guidelines provided possible ways to cooperate with and assist developing States in capacity development, and defined the role that FAO can play in supporting these processes.
However, the Guidelines are still “soft-law” in nature, meaning the implementation of the Guidelines heavily depends on the political will of States, and the effectiveness of the Guidelines is thus questionable. Despite the fact that the development of port States measures successfully evolved from the “soft-law” Model Scheme to the “hard-law” FAO Port State Measures Agreement, the consensus among States to have a legally-binding instrument on flag State performance later in the future is not clear yet. How will the concept of “flag State performance” evolve, and will other subjects such as market States increase their importance against IUU fishing in the future are thus worthy of sustained attention.
British Seapower in 19th Century and Globalization
Zhang Qian
From the early nineteenth century onwards, the British Empire became an incomparable global power in terms of both military strength and economic capacity. The sea was dominated by Britain. Yet Britain introduced a new type of sea power based on free trade, which is quite different from the previous zero-sum game. This type of sea power also contributed to the first trend towards globalization, which changed the progress of human society, brought unprecedented prosperity to human civilization and also provided useful lessons to later generations. This paper will analyze the characteristics of this new type of sea power; describe what sort of impact it had on globalization; and endeavor to discuss the problems of globalization at that time as to shed some light on the present.
The Myanmar Ethnic Conflict Studies through the Theory of the Frustration and Attack
Chen Jianshan
Myanmar ethnic conflicts have been a big problem for a long time, having had a significant impact on the regional stability and world peace. The reasons of the conflicts are listed as follows: firstly, the Myanmar minority people pursue military autonomy, but the Myanmar central government pursues national unity, therefore they often attack each another; secondly, they both want to occupy scarce natural resources; the ethnic policy of the British colonial government and the "counter-insurgency" policy of the Nai Wen government laid the seeds of conflicts; fourthly, the change of power of the military groups and the great power game left the shadow, and so on. Based on the history, we can know that contacts, dialogues, communications and compromises are all good ways to solve this problem, rather than those of civil wars and interventions of the outside great powers.
Comments of Foreign Scholars on U.S. State Department Nine-Dash Line Report
Sourabh Gupta and Leonardo Bernard
On Dec. 5th 2014, the U.S. Department of State published a new report — China: Maritime Claims in the South China Sea, as part of its Limits in the Seas series, where as its official position, it publicly challenged the validity of the nine-dash line. From legal perspective, this marks the official intervention of the United States into the South China Sea dispute. This article collects two commentaries, written by scholars from the United States and Singapore respectively, with opposite standpoints on the aforementioned report, which is hereby translated and edited, for the convenience of those who are concerned about the South China Sea issues.
Two Ways of Representing Mediterranean Civilization
——A New Method of Ocean History Study
Chang Na
Summary of “Nanjing Forum 2015”
Sun Jianzhong