Chinese Military’s Invasion of Territorial Waters: Selfish Interpretation of Law of the Sea Must Not Be Allowed

Editorial

14:00 JST, September 10, 2024

Japan’s sovereignty will be disregarded if China’s self-serving claims regarding the sea are left unchecked. The government must take every possible measure for monitoring and surveillance activities around the Nansei Islands.

At the end of last month, a Chinese naval survey ship entered the Tokara Strait off the coast of Kagoshima Prefecture and sailed in Japan’s territorial waters for about two hours. A Maritime Self-Defense Force vessel and a patrol aircraft called on the survey ship to leave territorial waters, but it did not comply.

Only five days before that, a Chinese military reconnaissance plane violated Japan’s territorial airspace off the coast of Nagasaki Prefecture. Around the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, vessels of the China Coast Guard frequently intrude into territorial waters.

China’s repeated provocations are absolutely unacceptable. It is only natural that the Japanese government has protested to China.

Regarding the survey vessel’s passage, the Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed that “the Tokara Strait can be [used] for international navigation,” adding that the passage of the vessel was “fully lawful and legitimate.”

China made a similar assertion when a Chinese naval vessel sailed through the Tokara Strait in 2016, but it is impossible to regard the Tokara Strait as a passage used for international navigation.

When U.N. members adopted the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982, they decided to expand territorial waters to up to 12 nautical miles from the coast, up from the three nautical miles that was standard at the time. However, there were concerns that this would result in narrow straits becoming the territorial waters of specific countries, thereby impeding free passage.

U.N. members therefore decided to regard narrow straits that served as key points of maritime traffic as “straits used for international navigation” and allowed vessels and aircraft of any country to pass through them freely.

These straits are called “international straits” — key examples include the Strait of Malacca in Asia and the Strait of Dover between the United Kingdom and France.

However, unlike the Strait of Malacca, which serves as an important maritime traffic route, the Tokara Strait is not considered an international strait by the Japanese government because of the lack of maritime travel by other countries.

First of all, there are areas of sea in which vessels can navigate freely near the Tokara Strait, and navigation routes have been secured without having to venture through territorial waters.

The waters around Japan are an important entry and exit point for China, which has been strengthening its maritime expansion in pursuit of its interests in the western Pacific Ocean. China’s claim that the Tokara Strait is an international strait is probably intended to secure a route that allows submarines and other vessels to move more freely.

Some believe China intends to continue sending vessels to the Tokara Strait in order to increase the number of times it has used the strait and establish a precedent there. If China does not change its interpretation of the law, the government should consider bringing a case to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Sept. 10, 2024)