 Welcome to New Slick Show mapping fault lines where we discussed major geopolitical issues across the world. The issue we're going to be talking about today is far closer to home. A few days ago there was news reports that a US missile ship the USS John Paul Jones entered into what is India's exclusive economic zone, a region which is defined as 200 nautical miles from the coast line. Now there's been a lot of controversy over why it happened. There are a lot of multiple definitions of what is international waters, what was the message that this operation by this movement by the ship was planning to was intended to make and we have with us Praveer Burkaisar to talk about this. Praveer so to begin with there's a lot of technicality in jargon like I talked about but it does seem clear of course that the US the USS John Paul Jones did enter into India's exclusive economic zone. So we'll talk about the implications later but how how are these concepts defined in the do both India and the US agree or a common definition on some of these? Well you know the fundamental problems that we have is this comes from what is international law and with respect to freedom of navigation and the United States claims that they have an understanding of international law and freedom of navigation which apply to its warships irrespective of what other countries may think. The question is is there an international law they're referring to? Now the only international law that exists as of date is what is called the United Nations Convention on the Law of Seas and that was agreed to by countries in 1982 that is the reference law for this purpose and the United States is not a signature to that law. So what it is asserting is a definition of its own making of what it considers freedom of navigation. It has actually a map of the world in which says what they don't agree with and they will do freedom of navigation or operations based on their understanding of international law which applies to the seas, seas, territorial waters as well as the exclusive economic zone. So that is one part of the problem that the US definition is a definition which is only applicable to the United States and it doesn't agree with anything else any other country is willing to accept. Now so this is one big issue that do we have an international law that applies to the United States as well and the answer is no as you know this has been a repeated problem not only on this particular issue but a whole range about the other issues where the US says that its laws apply to everywhere else every country has to adhere to international law and to US understanding of international law even if it is not stated in international law and this is not justiciable in international courts or tribunals or whatever that might have been set up because US quite often is not a party to these international treaties and laws. So this is the key issue when it comes to what US calls the freedom of navigation and what its international understanding of international law is. Now the problem that India has is that it has been implicitly and explicitly supporting the United States on South China Sea. Now you know if you come to the South China Sea this is not about high seas as the US is pretending it is it's really about not even territorial waters of China which is again which has a definite boundary but really about claims about exclusive economic zones what you talked about the luxury of the economic zone which the United States does not recognize and has claimed its right of freedom of navigation. Now this exclusive economic zone is not open seas not high seas when you have a freedom of navigation it's not territorial waters but if you look at freedom of navigation under the UNCLOS then most South Asian countries Southeast Asian countries will not be on the US side of its interpretation on UNCLOS what is freedom of navigation. Now the word even the freedom of navigation the US is using itself is a problematic one because in territorial waters and in what would be called exclusive economic zones it has a right of navigation but not a freedom of navigation and right of navigation is circumscribed by certain set of things in the UNCLOS and one of it is that innocent passage and so on so it is not an untrammeled right you don't have a completely uncontested complete right as you have in what would be called high seas where you have a freedom of navigation in this place you have a right of navigation and it is linked to innocent passage and you can do certain set of things you can't do a certain set of things so this is always has been the issue between the United States and all other countries in fact and it really boils down to US not recognizing UNCLOS because that is where the exclusive economic zone concept was worked out and agreed to and therefore what it is saying is beyond territorial waters everything is high seas this was the US position in the UNCLOS negotiations and that's one of the reasons it has not signed now it does this 20 to 30 what is called it calls FONOPS every year and last year it didn't do this in India in Indian waters this time it has okay so it's making it very clear you might sign on to the dotted line on Guam agree with us on various things but as for our position goes it's our way on the highway you don't have any option so that is the that is the position you may endorse in the United States position of FONOPS in South China Sea but having done that then you are also caught by the fact that they then exercise the right to do FONOPS in your waters and then what do you do so I think this is the shortsightedness of the government of India really didn't think through the positions that if this is the position that we are taking on South China Sea how would it affect us when it comes to Andaman's when it comes to Nicaragua Islands when it comes to Lakshadeep and even our economic exclusive economic zone around the coast of India so I think this is the huge problem that we have created for ourselves and therefore our embarrassment absolutely Praveen in this context of course there have been reports there has been discussions that the FONOPS was actually meant to send a message to China that the fact like you said that the US does not really buy into these international conventions but India is really in some senses landed up with an egg on its face a bit because we just had the quad discussions there was a lot of buzz about the quad as well it's been going on for quite some time and we recently had deals which talked about greater military cooperation between India and the United States as well so right now the position India is in is a bit untenable but as far as the United States and China goes how does this sort of play into the issues regarding the South China Sea as well you know South China Sea is clearly not an issue of international waters as I said South China Sea is essentially what needs to be resolved in unclos but unfortunately the parties to the unclos the way they have raised the issue the way China has reacted meant that this has actually been an expatriate verdict given against China which China has not accepted so the question is that what it was say four years five years back that a lot of these countries were trying to ride on the American court tail so to say and thought that that would give them certain protection on the South China Sea issue now that hasn't worked out and it is clear that China and US may clash on the South China Sea issue but it is not going to benefit the other players in the region and this can only be done or benefits could come only if all the parties come together now you know the problem that we have on all these kinds of issues and this is not restricted to South China Sea alone there are issues in between Japan between Japan and Korea there again the United States does phonops it's not that it doesn't do they are phonops there too South Korea the whole bunch of countries have this problem because one of the consequences of creating this concept of what economic exclusive economic zones is this was going to lay questions regarding contiguous areas of countries and if that happens how do you divide that where does the line go this also becomes even more problematic because earlier those which are considered shoals or you know patches of land on the on the ocean which was not even inhabited but sometimes people came and camped there now all of those areas then become very critical for defining where the economic zone is and those areas are in fact the issues which are being discussed between on the South China side between the contiguous states which is actually Philippines Vietnam Indonesia and so on now all of those are intractable if you decide to fight and if you decide there's a military solution to the problem they don't get solved but if you want to at the end of it say work on what are the fishing rights what are the economic rights under the water in terms of drilling for gas etc then all of this require a cooperative solution and I think over there the fact that the United States continuously ups the ante by doing this military ships traveling through South China Sea and saying we are doing it for freedom of navigation actually distracts from the other issue makes it a defense issue for China as well but then they need to protect this because this could easily be a springboard to an attack on China itself it's a coastal security that that becomes the predominant issue for China so the fact that happened that is happening and not the discussion of economic zone being the key issue I think distracts from the whole what how we should look at it but the problem is India instead of understanding that countries in Southeast Asia countries like India have to work out how we cooperatively look at the economic zone that is the key issue that we need to solve among ourselves inviting United States naval warships to do phonops in this area is counterproductive as we are seeing now you know there is one fundamental difference between the United States and all of us it's we are all essentially land based countries we do not look at the sea as something which is our territory the United States is a maritime power as UK wars England wars a lot of the European countries war of course there became settler colonial colonizers the United States is an outcome of that as well as Australia New Zealand now these are maritime powers and they therefore look at the sea or the oceans as the primary play of power that they have to exercise they don't look at the fact that it is really the land that is important where people are so if you see us it really wants to project its power in South China Sea which is 30 50 25 kilometers off the coast of China of course also off the coast of Philippines and other countries so this is the real issue projection of maritime power right up to the coast of China just like it also expands its land power using NATO right up to the border of Russia so I think this is a larger understanding geostrategic understanding that the US has that the they have to control Chinese coastline because it has to be controlled through the ocean and therefore the concept of the Indo-Pacific it is not a concept of Asia you know that's not the issue it's a concept of Indo-Pacific control the ocean and by that control India and control China and I think this is where India has to understand that its geostrategic vision cannot be that of a maritime power like the United States which believes in power projection using its naval power and that's why the aircraft carriers and so on that's a vision we cannot share and we should not share this is a larger geostrategic perspective that India needs to have and it's not an India versus China issue how do you really look yourself look at yourself as a nation and I think as you said egg on a on on our face is a minor way of putting it we really have got ourselves in a jam because we have not understood the larger geostrategic ideas that the United States has been mobilizing the quad essentially to control the Indian and Pacific oceans and what the consequences of that for us are now clear that this means if we accept South China Sea is where the US Navy has arrived then accept the luxury pandemons as well that's what it really is now being stated right thank you so much for you for talking to us that's all we have time for today keep watching this click