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China's Maritime Lawfare
Straatsma, Wietse ; Střítecký, Vít (advisor) ; Bruner, Tomáš (referee)
Bibliographic note STRAATSMA, Wietse. China's Maritime Lawfare in the South China Sea. Prague, 2018. 83 pages. Master's thesis (Mgr.) Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies. Department of Security Studies. Supervisor PhDr. Vít Střítecký, M.Phil., Ph.D. Abstract The primary aim of this thesis is to examine if and how the People's Republic of China uses legal warfare to strengthen its maritime power in the South China Sea. To examine this, Dunlap's interpretation of lawfare has been combined with a lawfare typology from Kittrie to create a framework from which China's behavior has been examined. The paper posits that China's behavior in and related to the South China Sea meets the criteria of lawfare. China utilizes both instrumental lawfare and compliance-leverage disparity lawfare to justify its legal claims on the South China Sea's maritime sphere and the landforms that lie within it. This lawfare combined with enforcement has led to China gaining substantial maritime power. The islands China occupies and their militarization have granted it marine resources, naval power, and bases to project power from. The thesis contributes to the literature on China's behavior in the South China Sea by providing a lens through which to view its actions. Moreover, it contributes...
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Differences in the resolution of sea territories conflicts in areas with energy resources
Bančanský, Andrej ; Karlas, Jan (advisor) ; Parízek, Michal (referee)
Energy security is an important phenomenon of the contemporary world. A significant number of oil and gas reserves are located on the seabed. Expansion of oil and gas drilling to deeper and from shore more remote locations can again raise the question of ownership of these deposits. On one hand, there are regions of the world where these disputes over borders of maritime territories escalate into a series of clashes and incidents. On the other hand, there are other areas where states can settle their disputes and cooperate on drilling. The goal of this study is to determine which factors lead to the fact that particularly in the South China Sea disagreement about the boundaries of maritime territories results in the escalation of disputes in comparison with the regions of the North Sea and the Caribbean Sea, where disputes are solved or minimized. These factors are represented by six variables, which are based on three theories: a realist, idealist and constructivist theory of international relations. The first part of this study describes the historical development of current international maritime law with regard to the territorial division of the world's oceans. It is followed by a description of three case areas. The second part deals with the theoretical foundations of the examined factors. In...
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South China Sea Hegemony: Does China have the capacity to dominate the South China Sea amidst U.S presence in the region ?
Britto, Aidan ; Raška, Francis (advisor) ; Riegl, Martin (referee)
In the last decade China has transformed itself into a maritime power. It is well established that the appointment of Xi-Jinping as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist in 2013 has been effective in rivalling the U.S Pivot to Asia of 2012 concerning the hegemonic dominance of the highly contested South China Sea region. The thesis aims to demonstrate how emerging powers like China are ready to exhibit methods of soft and hard power to liberate contested waters worth billions of unclaimed dollars of hydrocarbon resources beneath its seabed to showcase how an emerging power is ready to challenge an established power for regional hegemony. A combination of both qualitative and quantitative data has been used to examine Chinese power projection in the South China Sea with relation to their actions in terms of modernisation of their naval fleet, hedging of multilateral institutions and artificial constructions in disputed territories. In sum, a theoretical in depth analysis on how control over the South China Sea is crucial to long term Chinese security. .
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Relations between China and selected ASEAN Countries since the Accession of Xi Jinping
Smolák, Dominik ; Karmazin, Aleš (advisor) ; Kuľková, Miroslava (referee)
This work deals with China's foreign policy towards Vietnam and the Philippines in the period from 2013 to 2018. The aim of this work is to understand China's foreign policy, point out its changes over the years and capture possible causes that could lead to policy change towards selected countries. Part of this work is also the introduction to the broader context of mutual relations between selected countries and the introduction to the historical context of development. Special attention is paid to the South China Sea, which is a long-term stumbling block of mutual relations. The secondary goal of this work is to provide an overview of Chinese expansion in the region and how this fact affects foreign relations between selected countries. The researched political processes between the selected countries were analysed and qualitatively evaluated. Subsequently, tables were compiled containing indicators for evaluating the fulfilment of hegemony strategies. Selected cases were inserted into these tables. In these cases, it was demonstrated whether there were hegemonic tendencies. In the case of relations with Vietnam, there are no significant changes, on the contrary, in the case of relations with the Philippines, the change is very significant. Even though the result of this work is this finding, it...
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Can China rise peacefully? The South China Sea Issue
Petreková, Patrícia ; Sehnálková, Jana (advisor) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
This diploma thesis deals with the rise of China in the context of its behavior in the South China Sea over the past decade. The significant economic growth of the People's Republic of China over the last few decades is expected to affect not only the regional balance of powers, but also its position within the international system. There is a wide-ranging debate in academia about how China will grow and how it will affect the international community. As a reaction, in order to explain its growth, China has introduced the concept of "peaceful development", according to which its growth should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat to the international community. An offensive realism approach was chosen for this work and the ideas of its main advocate John Mearsheimer will be applied to the specific behavior of China in the region. The role of the United States, which influences China's behavior, will also be discussed. The diploma thesis will further deal with the increased Chinese assertiveness in the area of South China Sea and the means it uses in it to enforce its claims. The basic aim of this work is to underscore the contrast between the declared official policy of China and its actual behavior.
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Frenemies: Analysis of Sino-American Military Relationships During the Bush and Obama Administrations
Kryl, Šimon ; Sehnálková, Jana (advisor) ; Raška, Francis (referee)
This diploma thesis is an analysis of Bush and Obama administrations' approach towards Sino-American military relations. The topic of this thesis is the military cooperation between the People's Republic China (PRC) and the United States. The paper analyzes the trends and topics of the military-to-military contacts through the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) theory. The bilateral relationship between the two countries is the most important relationship in the 21st century and its development has worldwide implications. Historically, there have been multiple points of tension where interests of both countries collided, many of which persisted to be sources of the new unease. The American support to Taiwan through numerous arms-sales, increased Chinese militarization of space, cyberspace and the South China Sea are the main causes of reluctant military-to-military cooperation between the PRC and the U.S. It is vital for the rest of the global community that both superpowers keep an acceptable amount of tensions between their armies and ideally pursue more cooperation than competition. The paper concludes that the Sino-American military relations have gone through an on-and-off pattern during both Bush administrations, mainly due to aforementioned American support for Taiwan, and due to the types...
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Analysis of the behaviour of selected states in the South China Sea
Jetelinová, Denisa ; Kučerová, Irah (advisor) ; Karásková, Ivana (referee)
The South China Sea has been already for several centuries the root of a dispute among states neighbouring along its borders, namely the People's Republic of China (China), Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia. Since the Sea is very geopolitically and geostrategically important, China attempts to claim itself to be a sovereign. However, its activities face the demands of other states, especially Vietnam and the Philippines, which are also interested in gaining control over the islands in the South China Sea. For that reason, the dispute still persists, and the continuous activities of all concerned countries have created an endless spiral of events in which it is difficult to distinguish between the action and the reaction of individual actors in the dispute. My diploma thesis therefore focuses on the analysis of actions of the three selected countries, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines, from the perspective of structural realism that is split into two contradictory streams, defensive and offensive. Their different views on the world help me to clarify whether the behaviour of the chosen actors is defensive of offensive. For the analysis, the period from 2011 to 2018 was chosen. During that time, several major incidents have appeared between selected countries, especially...
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China's Maritime Lawfare
Straatsma, Wietse ; Střítecký, Vít (advisor) ; Bruner, Tomáš (referee)
Bibliographic note STRAATSMA, Wietse. China's Maritime Lawfare in the South China Sea. Prague, 2018. 83 pages. Master's thesis (Mgr.) Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies. Department of Security Studies. Supervisor PhDr. Vít Střítecký, M.Phil., Ph.D. Abstract The primary aim of this thesis is to examine if and how the People's Republic of China uses legal warfare to strengthen its maritime power in the South China Sea. To examine this, Dunlap's interpretation of lawfare has been combined with a lawfare typology from Kittrie to create a framework from which China's behavior has been examined. The paper posits that China's behavior in and related to the South China Sea meets the criteria of lawfare. China utilizes both instrumental lawfare and compliance-leverage disparity lawfare to justify its legal claims on the South China Sea's maritime sphere and the landforms that lie within it. This lawfare combined with enforcement has led to China gaining substantial maritime power. The islands China occupies and their militarization have granted it marine resources, naval power, and bases to project power from. The thesis contributes to the literature on China's behavior in the South China Sea by providing a lens through which to view its actions. Moreover, it contributes...
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Geopolitical Importance of the South China Sea
Volf, Dominik ; Kučerová, Irah (advisor) ; Karásková, Ivana (referee)
This diploma thesis, entitled "The Geopolitical Importance of the South China Sea", deals with the issue of the South China Sea dispute in view of the economic and strategic importance of the region. The main goal is to analyze the claims of individual countries and to find out whether this dispute has the potential to grow into an armed conflict. The dispute arose from overlapping territorial claims that countries in the region began to make after the end of World War II. This is primarily the case of the various maritime features in the vicinity of which there are considerable reserves of natural resources. It is the interest in securing these resources that is the main issue of the dispute. To this day, this situation has not been resolved and on the contrary it has triggered a response from states outside the region, mainly the United States of America and Japan. In order to achieve the goal of this diploma thesis, the theoretical framework, which is geopolitics and critical geopolitics, is first introduced. Furthermore, the general meaning of seas and oceans with the current legislation is introduced. On this basis, country case studies are conducted with the aim of making a comparative analysis that should clarify the current form of the dispute and the potential of the dispute to grow into...
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Territorial Disputes in South China Sea
Rožnovská, Veronika ; Ondřej, Jan (advisor) ; Bílková, Veronika (referee)
Territorial Disputes in South China Sea Abstract This diploma thesis deals with territorial disputes in the South China Sea and its participants. The aim of the thesis is to describe legal titles of all participants of the dispute and analyse their claims for areas in the South China Sea. The reason of the territorial dispute is based on the proximity of countries and the fact that the South China Sea contains a number of features that are claimed by surrounding countries whose claims exclude. Moreover, one of the participants - China, claims nearly 90% of the whole area. The thesis also describes provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that are significant for the territorial dispute, as well as, means of the conflict solutions of the dispute provided in the Convention. The Philippines as one of the participants of the dispute decided to initiate arbitrary trial in order to find amicable settlement. The arbitrary tribunal ruled in favour of the Philippines in that matter, however as final chapter provides, China decided to ignore the arbitrary award and continues to supress other countries. Thus, an amicable solution of the dispute seems very unlikely in the near future. Key words South China Sea, exclusive economic zone, territorial dispute
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