KAS Korea
KAS Korea
KAS Korea
KAS Korea
KAS Korea
KAS Korea
KAS Korea
KAS Korea
KAS Korea
KAS Korea
The joint conference kicked off with the opening remarks by KAS Resident Representative, Mr. Stefan SAMSE and Judge Jin-Hyun PAIK. Mr. SAMSE pointed out the export-oriented nature of both Germany and Korea and how maritime issues like trade routes posed a paramount significance for both economies. The overall theme, “artificial islands in the South China Sea,” provided the context for panels with differing expertise to discuss the timely issues concerning legal and strategic perspectives on the region. The first session was moderated by Dr. Seo-hang LEE from Korea Institute for Maritime Strategy (KIMS).
Dr. Suk Kyoon KIM, the Former Commissioner-General of the Korea Coast Guard, gave a presentation which continued with the overall theme but with a stronger emphasis on anti-piracy efforts looming in the background. A number of viewpoints were made conspicuous. First, since 2011 there has been a drop in the number of piracy attacks globally. Second, contrary to this overriding global trend, piracy has spiked to an all-time high in South Asia. The former head of the coast guard went on to argue that there had to be stronger efforts to combat piracy in this region. There were some concerns, however, from the panels that shifting the anti-piracy efforts to South Asia would result in the resurgence of Somali pirates which the international community had fought hard to keep in check. But referring to Operation MALSINDO and Eyes in the Sky, Dr. KIM was able to put the panels at ease by pointing to the success cases of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia’s collaborative sea patrol and surveillance efforts.
Subsequently, VADM (ret.) Lutz FELDT of the German Navy had some useful words of advice for today’s political and military leadership. VADM FELDT stressed the importance of viewing maritime issues not as an end state but as a permanent task. He also advised that the international community be more “proactive” about their maritime efforts. His bottom-line argument was that states must learn to collaborate politically through information sharing in order to attain better situational awareness. Some of the more specific policy recommendations included CMF (Combined Maritime Forces) as well as joint interagency cooperation among the Coast Guard, the Navy and NGOs. In the face of concerns that there could be legal barriers to sharing information, VADM FELDT refuted head-on by pointing out that they were “mostly obstacles linked to mindset.” Instead, we must all move on from the inertia of “need-to-know” practices to the new “need-to-share” paradigm.
Prof. Hyun Jung KIM from Yonsei University added a good amount of jurisprudential flavor to the dialogue. Prof. KIM’s presentation covered the Philippines-China arbitration on the South China Sea disputes. Disagreeing with those in China who first refused to appear before the tribunals and then issued a series of position papers and statements, Prof. KIM placed great importance to this dispute for a number of reasons. On one level, these maritime disputes in the South China Sea have attracted a global audience and not only the regional stakeholders. Secondly, as Prof. KIM accurately pointed out, one of the key difficulties in both interpreting and predicting the outcome of the tribunal lay in the novelty of the issues. She stressed that many of the conflicts arising in this occasion have never been dealt with by an international court in the past—making the discourse on the merits of UNCLOS all the more interesting. There were different predictions about China’s possible reactions to the decision. Some panels raised their concerns that the arbitration might backfire and further aggravate the dispute due to China’s firm objection to the rulings.
The first session of the conference culminated with a lively discussion involving all presenters and discussants at the table. Col. JOEDECKE spoke of the massive and unprecedented scale of the ongoing European refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. In light of the current crisis in Europe, the Colonel opined that he saw European naval operations in the South China Sea as “unlikely” to happen in the foreseeable future. VADM FELDT made some concessions that CMF and joint task forces would be extremely hard to put together due to issues ranging from “language” to “chain of command.” But he remained firm about his position on the need for international and interagency cooperation. There was some sense of agreement across the panels, too. Regarding the Philippines-China dispute, both German and Korean experts generally agreed that the arbitration would provide a big momentum no matter the outcome. Also, there was consensus formed about the need to modify anti-piracy efforts in the face of evolving patterns of piracy tactics and activities.
Dr. Manfred KERN, the Managing Director of agriExcellence GmbH, moderated the second session. Prof. Seokwoo LEE of Inha University Law School delivered a talk on the legal uncertainties and ambiguities surrounding the sovereignty and jurisdiction of maritime features known as LTEs (low-tide elevations) in the South China Sea. He emphasized the complicated nature of the dispute, which implicated historical, economic and political rights of claimants. Regarding Prof. LEE’s legal analysis, panels struggled to reach an understanding on the essence of the relationship between existing legal frameworks—like the UNCLOS—and de jure resolution of the conflict. This seemed especially true for Asia where the asymmetric use of power and the dispersion of economic centers changed the way international disputes were effectively arbitrated. Thus, new mechanism of conflict resolution seemed to remain a work in progress for all stakeholders including but not limited to China given their aggressive construction of artificial installations and militarization in the seas.
The first presentation was nicely followed up by Dr. Peter ROELL, the President of the Institute for Strategic, Political, Security and Economic Consultancy (ISPSW). Dr. ROELL shed light on the persistent political challenges facing both China and the rest of the international community. He covered the recent Chinese foreign policy strategies ranging from the Twenty-first Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) to the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Hinting at the need for confidence building, Dr. ROELL pointed out that the greatest challenge to China’s maritime agenda was the deep mistrust among their Asian neighbors. The point that sparked the most heated debate at the conference was, in fact, one of his twelve recommendations. Blaming the political gridlock partially on the historical animosity among Asian countries, he said that “Japan and South Korea should develop a more future-oriented relationship.” The Korean perspective raised questions about the practicality of recommendations and pressed for a more specific recipe. Some panels suggested that third-party states like Germany, Korea and the U.S. needed to reinforce their stabilizing role, expanding their forward presence in the region. And all throughout the session, the overwhelming consensus was that a better regional dialogue was necessary.
All in all, there is no doubt that Asia is now one of the few regions across the globe where increasing maritime and naval presence is still observable. Yet it is also true that much of what we know about maritime operations and security today was developed from Anglo-American concepts and by NATO. As was pointed out by the likes of VADM FELDT and Col. JOEDECKE, it seems central for Asian states to have a close look into some of these precedents and try to adopt them strategically in the coming years. More so than the German panels, the Korean counterparts acknowledged the serious limitations of the status quo institutions and efforts in Asian maritime theaters. They also realized the impact of bickering regional powers involved in various forms of legal and strategic disputes. There was a tendency to point to China as posing complex power projection challenges, which would require less great-power unilateralism, more reliance on multinational alliance structures, and a mix of combined and joint organizational efforts. While viewing the PRC as slightly constrained and not retreating, there were repeated suggestions that the next steps would be crucial as both German and Korean experts groped to identify how the current legal and strategic tension in the waters may be alleviated in the future.
Given all this, the significance of the South China Sea talk could be summarized by the word anxiety. There was anxiety about growing threats of conflict. There was frustration about the inability to find common ground between China and the other stakeholder states, let alone futility at repeated discussions that failed to narrow the widening divergence that existed among them. In that respect, the German perspective and comments on the issue called for a refreshing interpretation of how this gap might be abridged. Most of the panelists found some sense of hope in reestablishing the balance to the widespread appeals in the region. And the respectful atmosphere for delving deeply into the differences of opinion raised by speakers gave off a lighter air to the conference than the gravity of the ominous shadow cast by South China Sea seemed to warrant. As Mr. SAMSE pointed out in his opening remarks, it was clear that the KAS-SLOC conference was a process of establishing a strong and constructive tradition that was certainly one of a kind.
