China and US ‘need rules’ for underwater drone clashes

China and the US need to discuss how to handle potential clashes over underwater drones following the seizure of a US drone by a Chinese navy ship earlier this month, analysts said.

With both countries working on plans for networks of autonomous underwater robots, the likelihood of such clashes is increasing. But the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a voluntary crisis-management mechanism which 21 countries agreed to two years ago with the aim of reducing the chance of an incident at sea and, in the event that one occurred, prevent it from escalating, does not cover underwater drones.

“Such encounters will plausibly increase, especially given on the one hand the proliferation of drones for military use – in both aerial, surface and subsurface dimensions – and on the other hand, the geopolitical context in the region favouring drone use,” said Collin Koh Swee Lean, a research fellow with the Maritime Security Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

Margaret Kosal, a security expert at Georgia Institute of Technology in the US said CUES should be “reviewed regularly and expanded as new technologies are employed”, but Yan Yan, a maritime law expert at the National Institute for South China Sea studies, a Chinese government think tank, said underwater drones were in a legal grey area.

“CUES cannot apply to them at present, but CUES can add an appendix to include such objects,” Yan said.