Recent content
2023-02-24 | BY Mark Hoskin
At no point did the Constitution suggest the waters within the bounds were included as territory, which would in any case have been violated in 1900 when islands further defined in the 7th April 1900 letter from the US to Spain and ‘embraced’ in the Cession were added, where according to the letter that was part of the preliminary negotiations according to the US in Palmas, the focus expanded from: “Any island within those described bounds.”To ascribe a water’s claim in the face of such language, when it is added to the domestic laws that were developed shortly afterwards and remained in force for a long period, is, quite frankly, absurd. To argue for a maritime limit within the bounds of the 1898 Treaty, the Phillipines is claiming that Spain and the US created an enclosed seas regime that was then ignored during a period when the US was supposedly against such laws.
2022-11-14 | BY Hu Bo
Confidence-building measures (CBMs) are planned procedures to prevent hostilities, avert escalation, reduce military tension, and build mutual trust between countries. They have been applied since the dawn of civilization on all continents. In the South China Sea, CBMs are generally evaluated as a little low, especially in the context of rapidly expanding economic relations. Moreover, there is a wide range of doubts about why China and ASEAN member states have taken so long to conclude the Code of Conduct (COC).
2022-10-20 | BY Yan Yan
With the opening of a new round of face-to-face negotiation and the gradual progress of the second reading, it is foreseeable that the debate over the rules and order of the South China Sea in the post-epidemic era around the COC will become one of the most complicated factors affecting the region.
2022-09-13 | BY Hu Bo
In China’s surrounding waters, including the South China Sea and the East China Sea, despite the growing competition as well as sea and air encounters between two militaries, we should admit, that most of the encounters, more than ten times per day and thousands of times every year, are safe and professional.
2022-09-05 | BY The CFRA
Katsuwonus pelamis, listed in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as a highly migratory stock, is a South China Sea species that is fished heavily by rival claimants. Political disputes over sovereignty claims have made joint fisheries management difficult, if not impossible. The absence of a regional fisheries management organisation (RFMO) in the South China Sea further compounds this difficulty. As a result, no authoritative collaborative stock assessment on this or other stocks in the South China Sea has been carried out in recent years. New efforts by fisheries scientists from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam to develop a Common Fisheries Resource Analysis (CFRA) of katsuwonus pelamis in the South China Sea therefore represents a significant development in both regional science and regional cooperation. Using the Length-Based Spawning Potential Ratio (LBSPR) methodology, this paper examines the stock health of katsuwonus pelamis in the South China Sea. This delivers increased evidence to support domestic fisheries policymaking and develops norms and standards for regional cooperation.