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Sea Lanes In Asia-Pacific
A General Background

By M. R. Josse

MOST inhabitants of a land-locked country may not consider it very important to be acquainted with the fundamentals of Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC). Hopefully, the following write-up which focuses on the dynamic Asia-Pacific region and is largely based on a monograph by Ji Guoxing, a Chinese scholar, will, in these days of globalisation, help alter that naive belief.

BASICS: To start; the oceans cover an estimated 70 per cent of the earth’s surface with the Pacific Ocean occupying about half of the world’s ocean surface.

In the Southeast Asia segment of the Asia-Pacific region, the major sea lanes pass through the South China Sea extending over 1,800 miles from Sumatra to Taiwan. The principal sea lanes in Northeast Asia run through the East China sea. the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk.

The two main sea lanes of Asia-Pacific pass through the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean and the Middle East and through the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan to the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada.

Asia-Pacific also possesses several straits of strategic importance. They are sometimes considered as "chokepoints" given their potential for closure.

They include the Straits of Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, in Southeast Asia and the Straits of Tsushima, Tsugaru, Osumi, and Soya (La Perouse) in Northeast Asia.

Notably, some regional countries have modified the width of their territorial sea passing through straits. Thus, although both Japan and South Korea have defined their territorial sea as being of 12 nautical miles (nm), they have modified that to 3 nm in the Korea Strait, thus providing a "corridor" through which ships may travel without entering the territorial seas of Japan or Korea. Japan has also declared its territorial sea as being just 3nm in the waters of the Tsugaru, Osumi, and Soya (La Perouse) straits.

According to Ji—director of the Institute of International Strategic Studies, Shanghai—the volume of the main sea-borne trade in the Asia-Pacific region has surpassed 1.5 billion tons, comprising over one-third of the world’s maritime volume. About 15 per cent of the total volume of world trade transits the Southeast Asian SLOC.

The major commodities brought on northbound East Asian SLOC include crude Middle East oil as also grain, coal and iron ore to fuel Northeast Asian industries. Southbound shipping on the East Asian SLOC consists primarily of manufactured products bound for Southeast Asia and Europe.

MOVEMENT EAST/INSECU-RITIES: With the economies of Asia-Pacific booming over the past decades, the centre of international navigation is moving east. Thus, today, South Korea. China, Singapore as also Taiwan are increasingly participation in ownership of the world shipping fleet, joining Japan and Hong Kong as major ship owners.

Notably, maritime transport is generally categorised, thus, dry bulk (principally iron ore, grain and coal); liquid bulk (dominated by crude oil and petroleum products); and general cargo (principally, containers).

Oil being the main source of energy for countries of Asia-Pacific, they are increasingly dependent on Middle East oil imports. No wonder keeping the sea lines of communication secure and unencumbered is an important economic and security interest for the US, the world’s only superpower today.

Indeed, the US affirms that "promoting stability in the Arabian Gulf, maintaining freedom of the seas, protecting sea lines of communication, particularly in the Strait of Malacca, and other efforts to safeguard energy supplies will become a challenges of increasing mutual interest."

Because iron mines are found only in a few countries, most of the iron ore trade is sea-borne. As East Asia is becoming a grain importing region, the increasing demand for grain is impacting profoundly on maritime transport trade, with Northeast Asian countries, for exampoe, being heavily dependent on the US, Canada, and Australia for grain import.

While the total volume of container trade in East Asia’s ports has increased by nearly 300 per cent between 1985-1995, it is anticipated that they will probably handle around; 5 per cent of total global container trade by 2005.

Understandably, there are many insecurities associated with present SLOC. Indeed, as sea lines in the region are proximate to the Asian land mass, and pass through narrow chokepoints, they are greatly vulnerable.

Among the obvious insecurities in that respect are those related to the unstable political relationship among regional countries, such as between the US, Japan and China.

As Ji puts it: "The attempt by some circles in the US to sow discord between US and China and to disrupt the ongoing bilateral relationship to strategic partnership would destabilise the region and threaten SLOC security. The suspicions and mistrust between China and Japan would also affect regional peace and development as well as regional SLOC security."

That apart, there is also the issue of disputes over sovereignty of various islands and overlapping maritime claims in the region.

Thirdly, the ongoing naval build-up by regional countries could be another threat to SLOC security. In order to assure sea-lane security many countries of the region are currently engaging in defence and maritime capability build-ups.

Fourthly, the transport of radioactive wastes from Europe and Japan through the Asia-Pacific region constitutes another obvious threat to SLOC security.

Finally, non-conventional actions such as piracy, maritime hijacking, drug trafficking, pollution and natural disasters such as floods, tropical storms, severe oceanic conditions can also threaten SLOC security.

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