 Welcome to the U.S. Naval War College, the Navy's home of thought. NWC Talks features our world-class experts examining national security matters. We hope you enjoy the conversation. As China has become more powerful militarily and economically, it's also become more assertive at sea. And this assertiveness is manifest in three sets of unlawful maritime claims. First, claims around the mainland of China and the Paracel Islands. Second, claims in the East China Sea surrounding the Senkaku Islands. And then finally, third, China's claims in the South China Sea, the Nine-Dash Line. And each of these sets of claims fail to comply with international law. They reflect a strategic gambit by China to become the dominant power in East Asia. And Beijing understands that the world accepts a rules-based international order. And so this is part of China's legal warfare to couch its strategic gambit in legal terms. Hi, I'm James Kraska and welcome to NWC Talks. I'm the Chairman and Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Maritime Law at the U.S. Naval War College. And international law is an essential element for a secure, more stable and more prosperous international order. China undermines this order through these unlawful maritime claims. And these claims assert sovereignty or jurisdiction out into the ocean in areas that either belong to China's neighbors or are part of the high seas and therefore are governed by the international community in general. You might think of China as a serial violator of the law of the sea. So states may make claims in the oceans. And these entitlements are reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS. UNCLOS is a comprehensive treaty. You might think of it as a constitution for the world's oceans. And China joined the convention in 1996 and the zones that are set forth in UNCLOS are binding on all states as part of customary international law. UNCLOS permits coastal states to make these claims out in the water based upon a normal baseline that runs along the coast. And from this baseline, this imaginary line running along the coast, coastal states can claim a territorial sea, a contiguous zone, and a 200-mile exclusive economic zone. China's maritime claims, though, are not consistent with UNCLOS. First, China has drawn straight baselines along the coastline of its mainland and around the Paracel Islands. And these are shown here with these base points in green and straight baselines in red. And you'll notice that these are not along the low water mark, but rather they're lines that are in the water. And that means that they project farther out into the water and claim more water than is lawfully allowed. Now, straight baselines are permitted in UNCLOS under some special circumstances, such as when a coastline is deeply indented or cut into, or if there's a fringe of islands along the coast. Straight baselines are also permitted in some areas where there are historic waters. But China has turned these exceptions for normal baselines into the rule. And it's claimed straight baselines along the entire length of its coast, as well as closing off the Hainan Strait. China also claims straight baselines around the Paracel Islands, which are shown here with base points of yellow dots and orange straight baselines. China seized the Paracel Islands in 1974. Only for China, it's unlawful to draw straight baselines around these islands, regardless of which country owns them. Because only archipelagic states are entitled to draw baselines around islands. Archipelagic states are those states composed of archipelagos or groups of islands, such as Indonesia or the Philippines. And those states may draw straight baselines around their islands. But continental states such as China or Greece or the United States are not entitled to draw straight baselines around groups of islands. The second unlawful set of claims that China has is its straight baselines around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. China drew these straight baselines in 2012. China claims the Senkaku Islands based upon some sort of historic presence from the Ming and Qing dynasty. But there's no evidence that China ever established any sort of permanent settlement or station on the islands. Japan encountered the islands in 1895 and they were unoccupied and so Japan lawfully claimed them. The United States administered the Senkaku Islands as part of its occupation of Japan and Okinawa after World War II. And so China's claims not only are unlawful in the law of the sea, but they also encroach on Japan's sovereignty. And the maritime claims impinge on the freedom of navigation enjoyed by all states. The third set of China's illegal claims are in the South China Sea and these are the most egregious. The South China Sea is a strategic waterway. It's the main trade route between Asia and Europe and the Middle East. And it's not a small body of water. It's 1.4 times the size of the Mediterranean Sea and it's 15 times as large as the Persian Gulf. In May of 2009, China released a diplomatic note that it circulated to all countries in which it claimed indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea as well as the adjacent waters. And China also said that it enjoys sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the relevant waters and the seabed and the subsoil. You can see the 9-dash line here depicted on this map. The problem is that adjacent waters and relevant waters are meaningless terms in the law of the sea convention. And despite repeated attempts by states to ask China to clarify its claims and make them consistent with uncloss in the law of the sea, China has not been able to do so. The Philippines brought a case against China over these unlawful claims and in 2016, the Tribunal ruled under the law of the sea convention that China's 9-dash line claim had no basis in international law. China bases its 9-dash line claim on a Republic of China map from 1947. But the 9-dash line was really, from the Taiwanese perspective, a line of attribution to claim the features or the Spratly Islands and not make maritime claims to an exclusive economic zone or a continental shelf that did not exist in 1947. In 2011, China tried to bolster its claims by saying that its rights were also based on abundant historic and legal evidence. But this is actually counter to a basic rule of international law which says that the latter source of law in time prevails over any earlier source. And so when China joined uncloss in 1996, that would supersede any rights even if they happened to have existed. So the Tribunal ruled that China's 9-dash line claim could not stand and that China was not making any sort of lawful claim to straight baselines under the law of the sea convention. The Tribunal ruled that if there were Chinese fishing vessels that had used the area that was now part of the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone, that those fishing vessels simply were exercising their freedom of fishing that pre-existed the creation of the Exclusive Economic Zone by the law of the sea convention. Once China joined uncloss, it relinquished its right to fish in other countries' exclusive economic zones just as it acquired its own exclusive economic zone. The Tribunal also ruled that none of the islands in the South China Sea were entitled to an exclusive economic zone. All of these features were determined to be rocks or low tide elevations and at most they were entitled to a 12-mile territorial sea. They were not entitled to a 200-mile exclusive economic zone because they were not suitable for human habitation and did not have an economic life of their own. None of the features met that test and therefore none of them were able to generate a 200-mile exclusive economic zone that might overlap the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone. So the Tribunal determined that uncloss was a system of zones, that it was comprehensive and that the nine-dash line claim was inconsistent with it. The Tribunal said that it would be incompatible for uncloss for one state such as China to have any type of historic rights that linger within the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone and that doing so would undermine a central goal of uncloss, which was to have a comprehensive and coherent settlement of maritime claims and that China risked unraveling the entire agreement. Now China's efforts to establish these maritime claims is part of its strategy to decouple the United States from its friends and allies in East Asia. In particular, China seeks to eject U.S. naval and air forces from these areas. The United States has been clear that it would sail, fly, and operate anywhere that international law allows. One of the tangible expressions of the American presence is the 1979 Freedom of Navigation program. And this program is designed to reject maritime claims that purport to impede freedom of navigation. Freedom of navigation operations demonstrate non-acceptance or non-acquiescence of these unlawful maritime claims. And they also provide evidence of state practice and they maintain a record of air and naval transits through the area in order to encourage compliance on the part of China. The Freedom of Navigation program reflects a vital U.S. interest in operating in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and along the coast of China. The United States is dependent on navigation for maritime trade and prosperity as well as to maintain its military connections to its friends and allies in Europe as well as its treaty allies in Asia. Freedom of navigation is also critical for American strategic security because ballistic missile submarines must be free to roam the oceans in order to bolster nuclear deterrence. Today, China has routinely intercepted and harassed U.S. aircraft and naval ships. You see here the USS Decatur being intercepted by a Chinese warship number 170 on September 30th of 2018. In this case, the Chinese warship acted unsafely and unprofessional in order to try to push the U.S. warship off of its lawful track. But freedom of navigation has been essential for American security since the founding of the country. And today China's illegal claims are the most recent challenge to freedom of navigation. I'm James Kraska and it's been my pleasure to discuss China's illegal maritime claims with NWC Talks.