International Law with Chinese Characteristics : The South China Sea Territorial Dispute

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F48546054%3A_____%2F23%3AN0000067" target="_blank" >RIV/48546054:_____/23:N0000067 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.iir.cz/international-law-with-chinese-characteristics-the-south-china-sea-territorial-dispute" target="_blank" >https://www.iir.cz/international-law-with-chinese-characteristics-the-south-china-sea-territorial-dispute</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

International Law with Chinese Characteristics : The South China Sea Territorial Dispute

Original language description

China actively participated in the drafting of the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and ratified it in 1996. The domestic legal system of China also contains a set of laws such as the Law on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone (1992), and the Law on the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the Continental Shelf (1998). However, the Chinese interpretation of the UNCLOS has raised legal and security challenges in South East Asia. It started with a territorial dispute between coastal states over the maritime space in the South China Sea (SCS) and recently developed into the geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States (US) over the maintenance of the rulesbased order. Namely, in 2022, Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defense, pointed out China’s intentions to reshape its region and the international order so that it would align with its authoritarian preferences. Under Xi Jinping’s worldview, two of the ten concentric circles of interest are “to secure China’s maritime periphery in East Asia and the West Pacific” and “to rewrite the global rules-based order.” The dispute has a two-fold character. Firstly, China asserts its sovereignty over significant parts of the maritime space depicted in the “nine-dash line” map. It covers roughly two million square kilometers of land features, including the Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands, and the Scarborough Reef. Secondly, China repeatedly claims its maritime jurisdiction over the territorial sea, the EEZ, and the continental shelf, which overlaps with the EEZ of other coastal states, and thus it takes the maritime jurisdiction over these areas away from the relevant island groups. In 2016, pursuant to the application of the Philippines concerning the SCS dispute, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) adopted a decision in favor of the Philippines. The PCA rejected the position of China, concluding that its claims of sovereignty over the nine-dash line based on historical rights had no legal basis in international law. It was a landmark event in which China blatantly declared the Arbitral Tribunal ruling null and void. China’s assertiveness in the region, particularly its militarization of islands in the SCS, has shifted the issue from a legal to a political one, thus raising concerns about its regional hegemonic ambitions. This behavior has also caused security concerns among Southeast Asian states and the US.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50601 - Political science

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2023

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů