Maritime Game-Changer Revealed at Shangri-La Dialogue

US naval vessels have long conducted surveillance activities in China’s exclusive economic zone, 12 to 200 nautical miles off the coast. China is now following the US lead, conducting its own surveillance off the coasts of Guam and Hawaii; “somewhat counter-intuitively, this may prove to be in the interests of peace, stability and security right across Indo-Pacific Asia,” writes Rory Medcalf in the Diplomat. China’s surveillance was reported in a US Pentagon annual report and confirmed by Chinese naval officials at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a defense forum in Asia. Unlike the US, China is not conducting daily monitoring. The activity signals recognition that such activities are lawful in the exclusive economic zones and that China may be coming to terms with international law of the sea. “In accepting Chinese visits to its own EEZ, the United States is showing that this kind of ‘reciprocity’ is normal, and far preferable to a heightened risk of war,” concludes Medcalf, adding that such developments many explain why “dialogues between China and the United States seem to be making progress.” – YaleGlobal