The US has expressed concern at China’s recently enacted coast guard law. The US State Department has said that the law could result in an increase in maritime disputes and could be invoked to assert unlawful claims.
China is involved with maritime sovereignty disputes with Japan in the East China Sea and with several Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea. In January it passed a law that, for the first time, explicitly permitted its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels.
As a result, the Philippine artisanal fishermens’ association Pamalakaya called on the UN to declare China’s new Coast Guard Law “null and void”. The association said that Beijing’s new rules of engagement for the agency were incompatible with international law.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the US administration was “concerned by language in the law that expressly ties the potential use of force, including armed force, by the China coast guard to the enforcement of China’s claims, and ongoing territorial and maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas.”
He noted that the language strongly implied that the law could be used to intimidate China’s maritime neighbours.
Price also stated that the US was “further concerned that China may invoke this new law to assert its unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea, which were thoroughly repudiated by the 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling”. That ruling found in favour of the Philippines in a dispute with China.
The new US administration has reaffirmed a statement last July by the then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, which rejected as “completely unlawful” China’s disputed claims to offshore resources in most of the South China Sea…
