Maritime Silk Road from the Perspective of International Law

The Sino-Indian relationship is the most important major-power relationship in Asia and is also the most subtle and complex. It has a significant impact on Asian geopolitical relations and regional economic development. Border disputes have rendered the relationship delicate and unstable for more than half a century. The One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative put forward by the Chinese government is attracting much discussion in the Indian government, think tanks, and media. Indian policymakers will need to determine how to respond to China's grand blueprint for promoting regional economic cooperation in the new era. This essay will examine China's priorities for the maritime component of the OBOR initiative in the Indian Ocean, consider Indian and Chinese concerns about that aspect of the project, and evaluate India's choices with regard to participation.China's Maritime Silk Road: Key PrioritiesWhen Chinese president Xi Jinping visited Indonesia in October 2013, he claimed that Southeast Asia had been a major maritime hub since ancient times and proposed that China and the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should jointly build a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR). The MSR is one component of Xi's OBOR initiative, with the other component being the Silk Road Economic Belt connecting Europe and Asia. Since Xi proposed the OBOR initiative, the Chinese government has strongly embraced the principle of joint construction to meet the interests and development strategies of all states involved. In March 2015, China's State Council issued the document Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, which provides a comprehensive presentation of the OBOR framework.1 It indicates that the MSR initiative will focus on jointly building smooth, secure, and efficient transport routes to connect major sea ports.The long-term blueprint for the project requires careful selection of key countries and entry points before construction begins. Two factors are taken into consideration in choosing countries for the MSR. The first is whether countries are located on maritime trade routes or have marine transportation centers, such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Singapore, Myanmar, and Kenya. A second factor is whether states respond positively to the initiative and have a good foundation of economic cooperation with China.The Indian Ocean is a major maritime trade and energy channel for China and is of great strategic significance for the stable development of the Chinese economy. Energy security, in particular, is a key priority. After becoming a net petroleum oil importer in 1993, China became the world's largest oil importer in 2015. In that year, China's imported crude oil reached 335.5 million tons, of which more than 60% was transported via the Indian Ocean. In 2015, imports represented 60.6% of total oil consumption.2 Trade security is also critical. The Indian Ocean is the most important route for imports to East Asia and Southeast Asia and for exports from these regions to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The development of port infrastructure in these key regions will not only benefit China's economic development but also greatly facilitate the social and economic development of other countries in East Asia, in Southeast Asia, and around the Indian Ocean rim.Accelerating infrastructure construction is a major factor in encouraging regional economic cooperation. Thus far, the MSR includes joint port construction in Colombo and Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Gwadar in Pakistan, Kyaukpyu in Myanmar, and Chittagong in Bangladesh. Some large Chinese companies are also making investments in ports such as Piraeus in Greece, Said in Egypt. and Antwerp in Belgium in accordance with their own development strategies.MSR Security Issues: Different Concerns between China and IndiaIndia's geographic location and growing economy will have a great influence on the MSR. …

In March 2015, the Chinese government published an official document entitled “Vision and Actions on Jointly Building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road,” commonly known by the Chinese as “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR, 2015). The purpose of this massive initiative is to instill vigor and vitality into the ancient Silk Road, connecting Asian, European and African countries and their adjacent seas, more closely and to promote mutually beneficial cooperation to a new high and in new forms. Despite the establishment of the initiative, there has been very little scholarly discussion on the role of foreign direct investment in the important countries on the Silk Road and the impact of these investments on the people of these less-developed regions of the world. Vietnam is a critical partner in this initiative because it shares both maritime and land frontiers with China. Vietnam also serves as China’s largest trading partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with two-way trade approaching $75 billion in 2016. China has always expressed a preference for bilateral negotiations in the contested waters of the Maritime Silk Road, despite efforts by ASEAN and other regional organizations to develop more multilateral approaches. Through empirical research, this paper analyzes the challenges and opportunities for China in advancing Silk Road initiatives bilaterally with Vietnam as one of its most important strategic partners. The paper also sets forth Vietnam’s strengths and challenges in integrating its own Five-Year Development Plan into strategic partnerships, regional trade agreements and bilateral arrangements on the Belt and Silk Road including how the country can improve its strategy for foreign direct investment. Through integrating the development strategies of Vietnam, the overall plans for expansion of the Belt and Maritime Silk Roads may become a reality, and serve as a model to facilitate trade and investment throughout the region.

21st-Century Maritime Silk Road is a regional cooperative regime and it will provide public goods for regional countries. 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road is a process of co-building, sharing and open. Co-building of 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road means regional countries share the responsibilities of providing public goods while China as a big country may provide bigger share for the public goods and sharing the public goods by the regional countries. As an open regime, 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road welcome other countries to join the “club” to share the responsibilities and obligation. As a new regime, 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road faces with 7 problems, including: the high trade volume between China and the countries along with Maritime Silk Road, the trade imbalance between China and the countries along with Maritime Silk Road, low level of institutionalization, easily effected economic relations by political or security relations, failed states along Maritime Silk Road, privacy in the Indian Ocean, difficulties in connectivity. These problems show the necessity and difficulties of Maritime Silk Road. Building of Cooperative Regime for 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road including five platforms: trade promotion and trade disputes settlement platform, connectivity platform, finance platform, official development aid platform, and foreign investment platform. The elevation of Cooperative Regime for 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road can be done from the dimensions of effectiveness and legitimacy. 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road is proposed by China and should be beneficial for the national interests of China while it is worth noticed that the interests of Maritime Silk Road as a cooperative regime does not necessary identical with China’s national interests. With the enlarging of members of Maritime Silk Road, the dilemma between effectiveness and legitimacy will become significant which requires more delicate design.

With trade volume registering more than US$10 billion in recent years, Malaysia has already been China’s largest Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) trading partner since 2008 and its third biggest Asian trading partner after Japan and South Korea. It is expected that China–Malaysia bilateral trade with an 8% annual growth rate will continue to expand, and this strong bilateral tie is set to be strengthened in the face of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s efforts to enhance regional connectivity and especially maritime linkage by proposing the “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) construction. Malaysia is well placed, probably even better than most of its ASEAN neighbors, to embrace the opportunities brought about by the surge of infrastructure development and trade deals that is going to come with the progress in constructing the ocean-based Maritime Silk Road (MSR), one of the two initiatives of OBOR, the other being the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt. With Malaysia’s traditional linkage with China’s southeastern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, and as the holder of the Strait of Malacca, Malaysia is occupying a key strategic location that can serve well as China’s gateway to the ASEAN Economic Community. A statement made by the Malaysian transport minister has declared that a few ports in Malaysia has been identified to be part of the MSR. The close ties between both countries have resulted in cooperation in the transportation field such as railway projects and purchasing of trains from China. Indeed, Malaysia is in the process of developing inter–port city collaboration between China’s Qinzhou Port and Malaysia’s Kuantan Port. In recent years, China’s Guangxi Beibu Gulf International Port Group has bought a 40% stake in Malaysia’s Kuantan Port Consortium from the construction group IJM Group for a total of US$102 million. It is in such context and with due consideration of such developments that this paper will explore the prospects and challenges facing China–Malaysia cooperation within the overall framework of China–ASEAN strategic relations.

This article focuses on the connotation, capabilities, challenges, risks and the corresponding countermeasures of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR). The article states that the core of the MSR strategy is the cultural concepts of “balancing convergence and divergence” and “inclusive development” as well as the moral concepts of “mutual benefits” and “Do not do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you”. The strategy will uphold the basic principle of “open cooperation, harmonious inclusiveness, market operation, and mutual benefits.” Practical cooperation and joint building of the MSR will always be in the primacy of the strategy. Emphasis must be put on leveraging the comparative advantages of China and the countries along the MSR to let them coordinate with each other and reach consensus through “joint consultation” and form joint effort through “jointly building” the MSR. Countries can only achieve cooperation and mutual benefits and promote rebalancing of the regional and global economy through sharing each other’s strengths, risks and interests. The MSR strategy is composed of various economic cooperation projects between China and the countries along the MSR. However, it is also influenced by certain political and security factors and thus has geopolitical implications. But in the end, what connects the far-away regions is the economic interest. As a base and examplar, Southeast Asia is an important region for the MSR strategy.

Introduction to the 21st century Maritime Silk Road -- Wind Climate Characteristics -- Wave Climate Characteristics -- Ocean Current Characteristics -- Marine resource Characteristics and Current Utilization -- Characteristics of Important Routes, Channels, and Ports -- Maritime Silk Road in the Perspective of International Law -- Construction of Comprehensive Application Platform of the Maritime Silk Road.

This paper analyses the ancient Maritime Silk Road through a relational island studies approach. Island ports and island cities represented key sites of water-facilitated transport and exchange in the ancient Indian Ocean and South China Sea. Building our analysis upon a historical overview of the ancient Maritime Silk Road from the perspective of China’s Guangdong Province and the city of Guangzhou, we envision a millennia-long ‘Silk Road Archipelago’ encompassing island cities and island territories stretching across East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and East Africa. Bearing in mind the complex movements of peoples, places, and processes involved, we conceptualise the ancient Maritime Silk Road as an uncentred network of archipelagic relation. This conceptualisation of the ancient Maritime Silk Road as a vast archipelago can have relevance for our understanding of China’s present-day promotion of a 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. We ultimately argue against forcing the Maritime Silk Road concept within a binary perspective of essentialised East-West conflict or hierarchical relations and instead argue for the value of a nuanced understanding of relationality.

With the proposal of the 21st century Maritime Silk Road plan, China has demonstrated its willingness to connect with the rest of the world via cooperation, by sharing its development dividends. Yet, the soaring South China Sea issue possesses great potentials in dampening China’s ambitious efforts. The Maritime Silk Road plan is one example. The key is how China can conciliate its South China Sea position, which sees a territorialization trend of the dash-line claim, and the projected posture emphasizing on mutual cooperation and common prospects in the Maritime Silk Road plan. By operating the territorialized dash-line claim in an open-end manner along with subtle management tactics, the South China Sea tensions can be pacified, the Maritime Silk Road plane can also take a successful first step by delivering its words of cooperation and common prospects.

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (shortened to “Maritime Silk Road” hereafter) initiative represents China’s consistent theme of peace and development. It is conducive to achieve common prosperity and progress of human society. However, challenges and opportunities often coexist. The Maritime Silk Road links the South China Sea and the northern Indian Ocean, involving a large number of countries, a wide range, and long distances. The challenging natural environment, scarcity of electricity and freshwater resources, different political and cultural bases, etc. greatly increase the difficulty of constructing the Maritime Silk Road. Obviously, an understanding the characteristics of the marine environment, energy, legal counsel and so on is a prerequisite for the safe and efficient construction of the Maritime Silk Road. However, relatively weak basic research and scarce marine data seriously restrict the full implementation of the Maritime Silk Road initiative and urgently need to be addressed. This chapter discusses the significance and challenges of the Maritime Silk Road initiative and provides corresponding countermeasures.

Due to the lack of systematic basic theoretical support, there is no professional application system for the Maritime Silk Road either at home or abroad, which is urgently required by ocean navigation, remote islands and reefs construction, ocean engineering design, resource development, disaster prevention and mitigation, and so on. Since 2015, Zheng Chong-wei’s team has presented research on the management and plan for 21st Century Maritime Silk Road for the first time at home and abroad. This series of research systematically and finely analyzes the characteristics of the marine environment, as well as marine energy, important routes and port characteristics, geographical features, climate features, legal escort, and so on. Based on the previous research, we first analyze the importance and urgency of the construction of a comprehensive application platform for the Maritime Silk Road. We then propose to construct a professional application system for the Maritime Silk Road, covering the marine environment, resources, humanities, geography, economy, and legal cases to provide scientific reference for the national decision-makers, researchers, and marine engineering personnel related to the construction of the Maritime Silk Road.

ASEAN’s Stakes:The South China Sea’s Challenge to Autonomy and Agency Alice D. Ba (bio) The South China Sea has come to involve important stakes for all involved. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is no different—though its situation is also notably distinct. The South China Sea occupies what Michael Leifer once characterized as the geographic “heart of Southeast Asia.”1 Geography alone means that whatever happens in the South China Sea affects ASEAN states the most directly. Moreover, as smaller powers, these states confront much greater vulnerabilities when it comes to great-power demands, even as they may be particular beneficiaries of great-power association. China’s activities in the South China Sea have no doubt underscored these dilemmas as the ASEAN states all try to navigate between the strategic vulnerabilities and the economic opportunities associated with a rising, more confident China. Nor are ASEAN states’ great-power dilemmas limited to China: the latter’s activities in the South China Sea have also precipitated heightened attention from the United States. ASEAN’s challenge is thus compounded by the fact that the South China Sea has become an important focal point of rivalry and tension between the ASEAN region’s two most important great-power relationships. Maintaining a space between China and the United States—one in which Southeast Asian states can enjoy some range of maneuver and choice—may prove to be the greatest challenge confronting the ASEAN region. This essay considers what is at stake in the South China Sea disputes for ASEAN’s coalition of smaller powers, with special attention paid to institutional interests and constraints. It considers not only the more immediate challenges created by territorial disputes but also the more general great-power dilemmas that heightened tensions have recently thrown into sharp relief. [End Page 47] ASEAN’s Immediate Challenges Most immediately, China’s physical and jurisdictional assertions create the challenge for ASEAN of agreeing on a collective response. This challenge, however, is made more complicated by the fact that it is an intergovernmental organization. Tus, while other governments may have to manage a constellation of domestic interests and agencies, ASEAN as an institution is the expression of ten distinct sovereign actors. States differ not just in the importance they attach to the disputes but also in their relations with China and the kinds of regional responses they prioritize. ASEAN’s unprecedented and very public failure to produce a joint communiqué at its 2012 annual foreign ministers’ meeting chaired by Cambodia in Phnom Penh dramatically illustrated this challenge. Additionally complicating ASEAN’s response is the fact that critical differences exist even among the grouping’s four claimant states. The Philippines and Vietnam have been the most vocal and active in responding to China’s activities, while Brunei and Malaysia—even with recently growing Malaysian concerns—have generally favored softer approaches. Such differences challenge ASEAN’s efforts to adopt a collective position as well as implement possible ad hoc workarounds that might facilitate a way forward. In its response to the South China Sea disputes, ASEAN as a collective has prioritized the pursuit of a regional code of conduct (CoC) because it keeps attention on the principles of international law, as well as existing codes of conduct like ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. Following the embarrassment of ASEAN’s 2012 meeting, Indonesia quickly moved to facilitate ASEAN’s Six-Point Principles on the South China Sea. This statement identifies the “early conclusion” of a CoC and the “full implementation” of both ASEAN’s 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and the 2011 guidelines as important priorities alongside self-restraint and the nonuse of force by all parties, “full respect” for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the peaceful resolution of disputes. These six principles continue to provide ASEAN states with an important basis for consensus and action. Indonesia’s moves to quickly correct the failures of the 2012 ASEAN ministers’ meeting under Cambodia’s chairmanship are indicative of the understood risks that the South China Sea disputes pose to the organization. Notably, however, the CoC is “not meant...

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) initiated by China involves the construction of a new form of regional economic cooperation between China and the associated countries. Priority is given to eliminating maritime bottlenecks and improving maritime connectivity in the shipping network along the MSR. However, such potential bottlenecks have rarely been quantitatively identified. In this paper, we present a recursive spectral bi-partitioning method to detect the bottlenecks in the container shipping network along the MSR. This method identifies the bottlenecks by locating the cuts with the least total link frequency, normalised by the size of the port communities on either side of the cut. The results of the case study show that the proposed method performs well. Four bottlenecks with strategic geographical positions along the key trade lanes are found, namely: Suez Canal, Cape of Good Hope, northern Oceania, and the South China Sea, indicating locations in need of connectivity improvement.

The transport infrastructure connection is the fundamental base for the promotion of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road under the background of the Belt and Road Initiative. Ports, as the core elements in the connection, contribute to the practical infrastructure connections along the maritime road. A multihierarchical cooperation framework in between the ports and based on the fair and mutual benefit concept is the cornerstone of constructing the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and the engine fuelling the updation of Chinese seaports and growth. This paper first defines the port cooperation along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and analyses the opportunity and challenges from the perspectives of the port‐industrial and the port‐region interaction. Then, it develops research into port cooperation, path selection, cooperation mechanisms, and application conditions in analysing port FDI, BOT, port alliances, multimode transport, and the institutional innovation of China’s ports. In conclusion, we develop a game theory selection analysis to study multiwin cooperation for port FDI in host countries along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) draws up a bright blueprint for China and other countries to explore and achieve the “Ocean Dream” in a new era. It is both a kind of inheritance and development of Chinese traditional culture and diplomatic strategies, as well as the embodiment of a new Chinese view of justice and mutual benefit. Shipping is a key component for participants of the Maritime Silk Road to cooperate with each other. It is also an important way of forming civil exchanges and the engine for the legalization of the construction of the Maritime Silk Road. In order to fulfill these functions, the participants may have to adopt and coordinate favorable policies that are economically supportive and legally protective.

Since the establishment of the “Belt and Road” initiative, the investment and construction of ports along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road have received extensive attention from the international community. The evaluation of ports is of great significance to investors’ investments and construction of ports around the world, so it is very necessary to establish a reasonable port evaluation system. At present, there are few studies on defining and evaluating port resilience, and the existing port evaluation index system has defects. Therefore, according to the similarity between cities and ports, this paper introduces the concept of “three-dimensional space” and the “system of systems” theory of cities and divides the resilience of ports along the Maritime Silk Road into three-dimensional spaces of “physical-society-information.” The CRITIC-entropy method and the TOPSIS method constructed a port resilience evaluation model along the Maritime Silk Road and quantitatively evaluated and analyzed the comprehensive resilience and subspatial resilience of 28 ports along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The results show that the route network port degree, the annual throughput of the port container, and the number of fixed broadband subscribers per 100 people are the key indicators that affect the port’s physical space resilience, social space resilience, and information space resilience. Also, coordinated physical, social, and information spatial resilience development plays a catalytic role in improving overall resilience. Therefore, the investment of ports along the Maritime Silk Road should adopt corresponding and more targeted investment plans according to the actual resilience of each port. The research provides new ideas and directions for investors to invest in port construction and has certain practical guiding significance for the increase of investors’ income and the sound development of the national economy.