China's SCS Strategy Thread

[Brumby]

I can't remember exactly what our discussion regarding civilian vs military FON was preceded by back in October 2015 because I do believe it was discussed for a period before then as well. I think we might have talked about the issue of logical, philosophical and legal sensibility regarding dividing civilian and military FON from each other, and probably reached an impasse there as well.

Neither can I. I just wanted to point out that our most recent conversation was influenced by some residual outcome from previous similar conversations which collectively with your post 1840 became somewhat confusing for me. We can now move on.

 

[delft]

Warships can be a threat to a country therefore long ago the concept of territorial sea with a width of three sea miles was introduced from which in principle foreign warships are excluded. To cater for such cases as the Sont at Copenhagen where it is impossible to get from the North Sea to the Baltic without using the territorial sea of Denmark or Sweden or both the concept of innocent passage was introduced. For a warship to go out of her way in order to execute a FON operation is an absurdity which looks like an effort to intimidate the country concerned. When that country shows itself not to be intimidated it gets ridiculous which is the state we have reached in SCS.
Merchant ships are assumed to be innocent with exceptions as when being a disguised spy ship or carrying cocaine or other illegal cargo and their sailing does not need to be supported by FON operations.

 

[plawolf]

Is commercial fishing considered innocent passage through one's territorial waters? Granted the shoal is in dispute but regulating who gets to fish in those waters would be more of a demonstration in exercising sovereign rights as opposed to obstructing FON.

Commercial fishing is most certainly NOT innocent passage, and is in fact classed as economic activity, over which coastal countries' jurisdiction could extend as far as 200nm from the coast of any owned island, which is why the classification between island and rock is so important (rocks only get 12nm).

There is no way in hell anyone could hope to bundle fishing with innocent passage.

 

[Blackstone]

...China bashing is popular for a long time. But no such thing as Russia Bashing. Only Mccain has some beef with Putin but not many US politicians take it personally with Russia as a whole.

Oh really? Someone forgot to tell that to the US mass media then, because I've seen lots more anti-Putin and anti-Russia stories than anti-China or anti-Xi.

 

[Jeff Head]

War Drum posts and abject ideology comments by Greenest have been deleted as well as responses to them.

Discussions about the US Political position and US strategies also deleted...this is a PRC SCS Strategy Thread.

Greenest, you simply MUST stop with your over the top PRC nationalistic posts and war drum messages. You have been warned and suspended in the past. That will happen again the next time you do so.

DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MODERATION

 

[joshuatree]

Commercial fishing is most certainly NOT innocent passage, and is in fact classed as economic activity, over which coastal countries' jurisdiction could extend as far as 200nm from the coast of any owned island, which is why the classification between island and rock is so important (rocks only get 12nm).

There is no way in hell anyone could hope to bundle fishing with innocent passage.

Which is why I don't consider Filipino fishermen denied access at Scarborough as an example of FON impediment. That is enforcement of sovereign economic rights. Now I get the sovereignty issue is disputed but that's not FON. Some readily lumped it all together. The reality is, there has been no restriction of civilian FON at all. Military FON is where there is a disagreement but China is not the lone dissenter others like to make it sound. There are other countries who do not believe in military FON either.

 

[plawolf]

Which is why I don't consider Filipino fishermen denied access at Scarborough as an example of FON impediment. That is enforcement of sovereign economic rights. Now I get the sovereignty issue is disputed but that's not FON. Some readily lumped it all together. The reality is, there has been no restriction of civilian FON at all. Military FON is where there is a disagreement but China is not the lone dissenter others like to make it sound. There are other countries who do not believe in military FON either.

Exactly, trying to classify commercial fishing as FON was simply absurd in the first place.

If you want to stretch FON to such ludicrous extremes, you might as well add coast bombardment under FON while you are at it.

 

[Brumby]

Which is why I don't consider Filipino fishermen denied access at Scarborough as an example of FON impediment. That is enforcement of sovereign economic rights. Now I get the sovereignty issue is disputed but that's not FON. Some readily lumped it all together. The reality is, there has been no restriction of civilian FON at all. Military FON is where there is a disagreement but China is not the lone dissenter others like to make it sound. There are other countries who do not believe in military FON either.

I am assuming you guys want to discuss this issue in good faith because if not then say so since no one wants to waste time. The genesis of this issue is connected to the notion that China has a political position in differentiating between civilian and military FON. This position is directly connected to its defence of its actions over the SCS in that its actions has not affected civilian FON. If we want to nail this subject, then we need to establish the parameters of the discussion. There are effectively only three scenarios under consideration.
(1) Civilian FON in undisputed sovereignty territory.
In such a situation, what a country does with its own economic or judicial affairs is strictly a domestic issue. Therefore to even consider such a scenario for discussion is redundant.
(2)Civilian FON in the high seas.
The high seas is global commons. In such a situation, the only active belligerents are pirates which has no regards for law and order. I don't believe China considers itself in that category.
(3)Civilian FON in disputed territories.
When a territory is in dispute, there is no recognised authority over it but in reality within the SCS, China's actions through its multitude of coercive actions has imposed de-facto control over the said territories. This is best exemplified by the economic exclusion of fishermen in the Scarborough Shoals. That exclusion zone is restricting FON in both meaning and effect even though China's legitimacy in doing so is highly disputed

Therefore in order to argue that there is no restriction to civilian FON in the SCS, there are only 2 positions to assume :
Either
(a)The statement that there is no restriction to civilian FON is simply a rhetorical statement that has no honesty in it as it is devoid of reality; or
(b)Accept that in effect there is restriction to civilian FON by its actions and deal with that reality and not hide behind some rhetorical smokescreen.

 

[Blitzo]

Therefore in order to argue that there is no restriction to civilian FON in the SCS, there are only 2 positions to assume :
Either
(a)The statement that there is no restriction to civilian FON is simply a rhetorical statement that has no honesty in it as it is devoid of reality; or
(b)Accept that in effect there is restriction to civilian FON by its actions and deal with that reality and not hide behind some rhetorical smokescreen.

My post on the last page regarding the issue was quite clear on it actually -- post 1854, where I wrote:

...there has been virtually no cases of impeding civilian shipping FON, and the few high profile cases of FON obstruction (when relevant to China) were always in relation to either military vessels or aircraft, or in territorial dispute standoffs with other claimants.

The underlying point is that the narrative of threats to civilian FON portrays it as one of innocent, international civilian shipping being under threat whereas the past evidence of "FON disruption" was either in relation to only military vessels, or in relation to some cases of territorial dispute standoffs involving commercial fishing vessels (with the latter being a symptom of contesting or enforcing sovereignty).

If you're trying to put commercial fishing under the scope of FON then that is really pushing it, and frankly I'm not even sure if commercial fishing comes under the scope of anything near what could be considered as innocent passage, though that depends on the location of the specific action. But commercial fishing within disputed territories most definitely cannot be considered under the same scope as civilian commercial shipping vessels, which has been the true source of dispute in the present tense.

The overarching argument is that China has not restricted civilian FON rests on the basis of past actions, which have only been related to military vessels and aircraft, or in cases of territorial sovereignty in enforcing sovereignty claims.
So the caveat regarding "not having restricted civilian FON in general" has already been acknowledged before, however the overarching argument I believe is still fundamentally solid given controlling commercial fishing within what China considers its sovereign territory (yes it is disputed, but China considers it sovereign and to not enforce its domestic controls would be a way of conceding sovereignty) would be within its rights. More importantly equating controlling commercial fishing within disputed waters to the idea that China is suddenly a threat to general civilian shipping FON in the entirety of the SCS is founded on poor logic (and that is what the narrative seems to be putting forward), therefore this argument is meant for specific rebuke against that narrative which I believe the argument should succeed in doing.

 

[Blitzo]

Actually, it might be fit to rephrase the argument to a new one, better tailored for the purpose of countering the "media narrative":
China has not obstructed FON in any way which would be consistent with being able to logically claim that its actions have demonstrated it has the potential to place civilian commercial shipping FON under any sort of threat.

=====

The truth is all nations have obstructed civilian FON in some way, if we want to expand the definition, whether it be within their own waters, disputed waters or even within international waters, and more often than not it is on the basis of national security.

For instance the USN stopped the Yinhe, a Chiese shipping vessel, while it was in international waters, due to suspecting it was shipping chemical materials to Iran (it wasn't), but despite this action we cannot logically claim the US is thus somehow a threat to civilian commercial shipping FON, because this is a unique action made on the basis of a nation's own national security and cannot be expanded to that nation's policy towards all civilian vessels or even all civilian shipping.
Similarly, in the case of commercial fishing in disputed waters, obstructing and regulating such boats are also unique actions on the basis of a nation's own national security and sovereignty and cannot be expanded to that nation's policy towards all civilian vessels or all civilian shipping.

Therefore, it is impossible to truly say "nation X has never obstructued civilian FON" because one can always come up with an example where it technically has. Thus, the rephrasing of the argument.