Right and wrong far from clear in open sea

Greg Torode

With its flags, fire hoses and sailors flaunting their underwear, Sunday's standoff in the South China Sea between a US naval surveillance ship and Chinese vessels appeared to be more Monty Python than Hunt for the Red October.

Yet despite the absurd elements surrounding the harassment of the USNS Impeccable, the incident and other similar recent cases raise disturbing questions - and highlight potentially dangerous activity that is only expected to intensify, off China's coasts and around the region.

For a start, if you are looking at the rights and wrongs of the affair, independent maritime experts will tell you there are no easy answers. It is a reflection in part of the traditional freedoms - some would say lawlessness - of the open sea.

The implementation and interpretation of the United Nations' Convention on the Law of the Sea is decades' old yet remains a work in progress at best.

Lawyers say you could steer an oil supertanker through its vague wording and slippery concepts. The fact that the US has yet to ratify the document, completed in 1982 and made effective 12 years later, doesn't help, either.

It is under this law that a nation can demarcate its 12 nautical mile territorial zone and a further 200 mile "exclusive economic zone". The economic zone gives a nation rights to exploit any oil, gas or fish stocks and control marine research. But despite fierce mainland rhetoric this week, experts say it does not represent actual sovereignty or territory. Civilian shipping and the militaries of other states, therefore, have full rights of passage, including surveillance work.

China has cited its economic zone in its objections to the Impeccable's actions, which took place an estimated 120km south-southwest of Hainan Island. The coast of Vietnam is even closer - a reminder of the South China Sea's hotly disputed waters in a further muddying of the picture.

Lawyers and other analysts say both sides could make strong cases. China could point to the convention's demand that other states show a nation's interests "due regard" inside an economic zone and that it has a right to be informed about marine research. The US could insist its actions amounted to ordinary naval activity. Such questions are only going to multiply in coming months and years. China's construction of a state-of-the-art nuclear submarine base at Yulin on Hainan is going to be closely observed by the US and other regional navies, given the importance of the sea lanes through the South China Sea.

Not only does the Impeccable and its sister ships listen for Chinese submarines, but it also collects data crucial to the deployment of America's own subs - water temperature, marine life, currents and other information. Sam Bateman, a senior fellow at Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said such work was particularly important off East Asia's coasts, with its complex, undulating sea floor.

"We're going to see a lot more of this kind of work around the entire region as submarine fleets grow ? there is going to be an enormous potential for tension and misunderstandings in future unless there is improved communications between military powers," Dr Bateman said.

The increased activity is a reminder, too, of a potential problem ahead for Beijing as it tries to curb Washington's perceived excesses. With its own blue-water submarine fleet, it can be expected to enter other countries' economic zones and deploy similar craft to the Impeccable for its own data collection. Submarines are key weapons in the hunt for intelligence, able to tap into undersea cables and deploy divers close to rival coastlines and facilities.

Just as the Soviet Union regularly sailed right up to the US coast, China will one day have reasons to do the same - using the freedoms it now accuses the US of exploiting.