South China Sea needs more than a code of conduct to ensure regional maritime stability

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US Navy personnel fire a .50-cailber machine gun during a weapon’s qualification course aboard the USS Mustin in the South China Sea on July 5. Photo: US Navy Handout via Reuters

Published: 4:02am, 5 Oct 2018Updated: 4:40am, 5 Oct 2018

Jonathan Odom, a long-time US Navy professional advocate for and defender of provocative US naval activities in the South China Sea, and his co-author Collin Koh (“South China Sea safety depends on naval codes of conduct”, September 22) either misunderstand or are being disingenuous regarding the thrust of the argument in my article, “Naval code of conduct won’t make US-China encounters in South China Sea safer”, (September 6). As I clearly stated, the problem is that most such encounters are not unintentional but purposeful testing of limits and sending of “messages”.

The Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) and similar agreements will not make them friendlier or less frequent. CUES’ effectiveness is also diminished by its being non-binding and not applicable to coastguards.

The allegedly “unsafe and unprofessional” manoeuvre of a Chinese destroyer near the USS Decatur around Gaven Reef on September 30 is a case in point.

In addition to US freedom of navigation operations and intelligence probes in China’s “near seas”, such intentional encounters also occur in disputes between Asian countries, like the March 2005 naval jockeying around Ambalat between Indonesia and Malaysia or the ongoing China-Japan skirmishes in the East China Sea. There are likely to be many more examples as Asian countries increasingly use gunboats and warplanes to defend their maritime claims.

A US Navy photo showing the near-miss during the confrontation between the USS Decatur (left) and a Chinese Navy destroyer in the South China Sea on September 30. Photo: US Navy

Expecting a communications and manoeuvring regime like CUES to, in Koh’s words, “promote regional maritime stability” or reduce the seriousness of such incidents is unrealistic.