The World Oceans Day celebrates the seas as a boon for mankind. It may soon turn out to be a bane for Sino-Indian relations. The problems are many and centre around the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) as the sea area and seabed stretching 200nm from the coast and island territories, including the 12 nautical mile (nm) strip of water hugging the coasts of countries deemed sovereign territory, exclusively for the coastal country to mine and drill for offshore oil and gas.
South China Sea Contest
In a world where traditional energy and minerals sources are depleting fast, such resources are highly prized and as between states with extended coastlines and contested island territories, ever-elongated EEZs are reduced to a confusing welter of overlapping claims that are difficult to resolve because they are almost impossible to disentangle. EEZs do not, however, prohibit or limit in any way the right of free passage through these waters for merchant marine and even warships of all countries in peace time. But peace depends on how emphatically a country seeks to enforce its claims.
At the recent Shangrila Conference in Singapore, the head of the Chinese Navy Admiral Sun Jianguo talked plainly about the possibility of adding to the 2,000-odd acres of new “islands” brazenly created in mid-South China Sea by Beijing in violation of international laws and legal understandings. China dumped massive amounts of earth, sand, and silt, cemented these huge manmade outcroppings, and used them as air fields and impromptu naval bases, and has threatened to impose an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) in the area. Both the”islands” and the ADIZ are, however, capable of triggering war.