Page 161 - 《国际安全研究》2021年第3期

Vo1. 39, No. 3, May/June 2021
threats, Indonesia has shown a low willingness to provide security-related public
goods, thus forming a logic featuring “free-riding” and sensitivity to the cost of
sovereignty in its maritime security cooperation. Third, the vast high seas between
Indonesia’s islands were once the greatest threat to its maritime security. In line with
the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the
international community basically recognizes Indonesia’s archipelagic rights.
Therefore, Indonesia continues its efforts to seek shelter under the institutional
umbrella of UNCLOS for its maritime security and its bottom line for maritime
security cooperation. Understanding Indonesia’s line of thinking and perception of
maritime security can shed some light on both parties of China and Indonesia to
facilitate maritime security cooperation.
[Keywords] Indonesia, maritime security, the South China Sea issue, Natuna,
maritime cooperation
[Author] XUE Song, Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of International Studies of
Fudan University (Shanghai, 200433).

102 Demarcation of Marine Military Activities and “Gray Zone”
Operations of the United States in the South China Sea

LIU Mei
[Abstract] As a tool for maritime competition with China, the “gray zone” operations
of the United States in the South China Sea have taken good advantage of the
ambiguity of The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the fact that
the Convention does not clearly lay down criteria for military activities. As a legacy
of the Convention, the demarcation of marine military activities has claimed close
attention from theorists, but it is still at issue in international judicial practices. In
addition, new challenges keep arising, such as intensified conflicts of interests
between traditional maritime powers and emerging maritime countries represented
by China, and the increasingly diverse forms of maritime activities by sovereign
states, which makes it more complicated to define marine military activities. Based
on international judicial practices, courts or arbitration tribunals mainly focus on
three elements of maritime activities: subject factors, behavioral patterns and activity
objectives. These three elements help develop a line of thinking in defining maritime
activities, which tends to take subjects of maritime activities as preliminary evidence,
underlining the examination of their behavioral patterns and taking into account
activity objectives within a limited scope. From the empirical perspective,
re-examining the US “gray zone” operations featuring the so-called “freedom of
navigation operation” in the South China Sea will help China gain an objective and
comprehensive understanding of its legal nature, launch forceful counterattacks in
compliance with international law against the US maritime hegemonic actions and
improve China’s response plans to rise to the US maritime operations. Only by
doing so will China be able to avoid uncontrolled conflicts during its strengthened
efforts to conduct law enforcement activities and safeguard its maritime rights in the

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