(China&india Today Wednesday 3 August 2016)
Rising maRitime tensions in Region
China holds live-fire navy drills in East China Sea
Court also warns that people caught fishing illegally in Chinese waters may be jailed
China’s Defence Ministry said yesterday the East China Sea exercises on Monday
were aimed at improving the ‘intensity, precision, stability and speed’ of its military.
PHOTO: REUTERS
BEIJING — China’s navy fired dozens of missiles and torpedoes during exercises in the East China Sea, amid heightened maritime tensions in the region.
The live-fire drills began on Monday, and China’s Defence Ministry said yesterday that the East China Sea exercises were aimed at improving the “intensity, precision, stability and speed” of its military. “An information-technology-based war at sea is sudden, cruel and short, which requires fast transition to combat status, quick preparation and high assault efficiency,” the ministry said.
The drills incorporated ships, submarines, aircraft and coast guard forces, illustrating China’s growing emphasis on integrated training under realistic conditions.
China’s navy has been closing the gap with its United States rival in both ship numbers and technology, including the deployment of advanced antiship missiles, nuclear submarines and the country’s first aircraft carrier.
While global attention has been drawn to the South China Sea, where an arbitration court in The Hague last month invalidated Beijing’s claims to a vast swath of the waterway, Beijing also operates extensively in the East China Sea, where it claims a string of uninhabited islands controlled by Japan.
China also claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which around US$5 trillion (S$6.7 trillion) in shipborne trade passes each year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as self-ruled Taiwan have rival claims. Beijing had rejected The Hague ruling, calling it “waste paper”.
And in a move that is bound to further raise regional maritime tensions, China’s Supreme Court yesterday said that people caught fishing illegally in Chinese waters could be jailed for up to a year. It issued a judicial interpretation defining those waters as including China’s exclusive economic zones.
China’s Supreme Court made no direct mention of the South China Sea or Hague ruling, but said its judicial interpretation was made in accordance with both Chinese law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
“Judicial power is an important component of national sovereignty,” the Supreme Court said. “People’s courts will actively exercise jurisdiction over China’s territorial waters, support administrative departments to legally perform maritime management duties ... and safeguard Chinese territorial sovereignty and maritime interests.”
Jurisdictional seas covered by the interpretation include contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones and continental shelves, it said.
People who illegally enter Chinese territorial waters and refused to leave after being driven out, or who re-enter after being driven away or being fined in the past year, would be considered to have committed “serious” criminal acts and could get up to a year in jail, the Court said.
“The explanation offers legal guarantees for marine fishing law enforcement,” it added.
It also established penalties for harvesting coral and giant clams, as well as other endangered species.
Any foreigners who believe that Beijing has violated their rights are welcome to take their claims to Chinese courts, the ruling added.
China periodically detains fishermen, especially from the Philippines and Vietnam, and Chinese fishermen also occasionally get detained by other claimants in the South China Sea. AGENCIES
ChIna’s Actions‘ May Cause Uninteded Consequences’
China risks triggering unintended conflict with Asian rivals through its aggressive stance in maritime disputes, Japan warned yesterday in an annual security assessment. Its actions “include dangerous acts that could cause unintended consequences,” Tokyo said in a Defence White Paper. The White Paper said China was “poised to fulfil its unilateral demands without compromise”, including efforts “to turn these coercive changes to the status quo into a fait accompli”. It again called on Beijing to abide by the ruling of the tribunal, which China has called a fraud. China’s official Xinhua news agency condemned the review for hyping up the “China threat” theory. “The real purpose of the document is to tarnish China’s image, contain China’s peaceful rise, and offset its growing international influence, particularly its clout in the Asia Pacific,” it said in an English-language commentary. Japan’s White Paper comes less than a month after an arbitration court in the Hague invalidated China’s sweeping claims in the disputed South China Sea. The United Nations-backed court ruled that there is no legal basis for China’s ambitions over the resource-rich South China Sea, where the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and others also lay claims. Japan has no territorial claims there, but it fears that Chinese military bases will bolster Beijing’s influence over a region through which US$5 trillion (S$6.7 trillion) in shipborne trade passes every year, much of it to and from Japanese ports. Japan also expressed concern over increased activity in the East China Sea, where the two countries have competing claims over a group of small uninhabited islets called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. “Recently, China has been intensifying activities near the Senkaku Islands, such as its military aircraft flying southward closer to the islands,” it said. AGENCIES