The return of gunboat diplomacy

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Human Events:

 

The return of gunboat diplomacy

 

 

 

By:

Iain Murray and Riley Walters

12/11/2012 04:46 AM

 

Last September, China deployed six surveillance ships in response to the Japanese government’s attempt to buy the disputed Senkaku islands, which the Chinese call the Daioyus, from their current owner, a wealthy Japanese family. Both countries are signatories to the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), which celebrated its 30^th anniversary this year. LOST was supposed to settle disputes between countries over maritime boundaries, but China and Japan seem not to have gotten the memo.

 

More recently the Chinese province of Hainan ratified a new law that gives Hainanese officials jurisdiction to board vessels in an area where China currently has joint sovereignty alongside the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan recently said that this new legislation could seriously aggravate tensions among these Asian nations and pose a threat to global trade.