Tanker owners coming near to China have more paperwork to complete. China is flexing its muscle in the South China Sea at a time where the US and allies are conducting military procedures in the region. In a classic maneuver of what is called “lawfare”, China announced a new set of maritime regulations last week that require ships carrying certain types of cargo to provide detailed information to the Chinese authorities when transiting through Chinese “territorial waters”.
Beijing on Sunday unveiled new maritime rules which mandate vessels carrying radioactive materials, oil, chemicals, LNG, and a host of other supplies to report the details of their cargoes upon their entry into Chinese waters.
Beijing claims almost all of the 1.3m sq miles South China Sea as its sovereign territory.
In a classic maneuver of what is called “lawfare”, China announced a new set of maritime regulations last week that require ships carrying certain types of cargo to provide detailed information to the Chinese authorities when transiting through Chinese “territorial waters”.
Though such demands by littoral states are not unusual, it does not take a genius to understand that this particular move is part of an ongoing Chinese project to establish its jurisdiction over the South China Sea by using Chinese laws and regulations. Neither is the use of “lawfare” to project a country’s goals. The US routinely uses what is called a “long-arm jurisdiction” to claim the global authority of its laws and regulations as part of its exercise of projecting power.
Now according to the Global Times, vessels from foreign countries, including submersibles, nuclear vessels, ships carrying radioactive materials, bulk oil, chemicals, LNG, and other harmful substances, “are required to report their detailed information upon their visits to Chinese territorial waters”.
In recent years, many of these claimants have dredged maritime features and created artificial islands. But the Chinese have gone further and turned many of them into full-fledged military facilities and asserted that the seas around them are “territorial waters”.
China is unlikely to back off from its expansive and ambiguous maritime claims. It is now seeking to work out a Code of Conduct with the other claimants, but it wants them to agree to a declaration that extra-regional powers are kept out of issues relating to the South China Sea.
But whether Beijing likes it or not, the arbitral award has been a dampener in its effort to consolidate its authority over the area through lawfare. Issues like the latest notification are more by way of being used as pinpricks rather than a useful means of expanding Chinese control.
Read the full article: Beijing demands Cargo details when entering Chinese waters (dryadglobal.com)
