The previous issue of “Maritime Affairs” was a “special edition”, commemorating 40 years of the coming into force of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). I believe that it constitutes a valuable resource for anyone seeking to deepen his or her understanding of this critically important piece of international law that underpins much of the maritime rules based order, the world over.
Our current issue is a regular one, featuring a variety of articles on subjects of maritime relevance, ranging from the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal, and additionally focusing upon ports and sustainable fisheries.
Addressing a contemporary area of research interest, Nishant Nair, in his piece entitled “China in South China Sea: Evolving Geopolitical Interests and Opportunism”, traces the manner in which China has been consistently staking claims to the entire South China Sea (SCS) citing them to be historical waters. Nair opines that the consistent nature of these claims are indicative of the long-term nature of China’s interests that range from hyper nationalism and the reclamation of “lost” territories to the furtherance of Beijing’s commercial and geostrategic interests. The onset of the COVID-19 virus in Wuhan in November 2019 and its rapid transformation into a global pandemic witnessed a shift in China’s foreign policy. Nair analyses Chinas evolving geopolitical interests and recent geopolitical opportunism during this pandemic, by way of unilateral State-level administrative actions, completion of military infrastructure development, conduct of military exercises, aggressive military actions and the promotion of “wolf warrior” diplomacy, to gain operational advantage by changing the “status quo” in the South China Sea in its favour in order to subordinate other claimants and dominate the region.
In “Project Green Ports: Are Indian Ports on the Right Track?”, Nitin Agarwala takes an in-depth look at India’s policy on green ports. He discusses how seaports have evolved with changes in technology to the contemporary time in which they handle close to 80 per cent of global trade (by volume_ and some 70 per cent by value. As ports have proliferated and expanded across the world, unabated pollution from the myriad activities of ships, ports, industries and infrastructure development, has forced countries to focus upon safe, efficient and sustainable ports by concentrating upon community development to achieve cleaner harbours, skies and soil. An effort of the Government of India in this direction is “Project Green Ports”, which is principally relevant to major ports in India. Although the project was initiated in 2016, there is relatively little that is available by way of updates on this project. Agarwala’s article seeks to fill that gap by discussing the progress of the major Indian ports towards becoming green ports. In doing so, the article analyses the efforts being made by India, as also the shortcomings that persist, so as to ascertain whether Indian ports are on the right track to becoming “green”.
The next contribution to the issue is “Sustainable Fishery: Combating IUU Fishing through People’s Participation to Ensure Environmental Justice”, co-authored by Anand Kumar and K Parameswaran. The world ocean is a marine continuum that facilitates relatively free interchange amongst its parts and is of fundamental importance to the study of environmental justice. Environmental justice sits within the larger ambit of social justice and equity. Kumar and Parameswaran examine the effects of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing within the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) on sustainability, and damage to the marine ecology, resulting in environmental and distributive injustice to the coastal communities. Their analysis also highlights the prevalence of IUU fishing on the high seas and in the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of coastal States vis-à-vis existing international laws pertaining to fisheries. In addition, the article analyses the feasibility of managing the marine environment in the IOR through people’s participation, utilising the tenets of the military analytical process known as the “Commander’s Estimate of the Situation” (CES), and suggests courses of action (CoAs) to achieve environmental justice. Further, it makes use of three case studies – two from India and one from Japan – in order to assess the feasibility of people’s participation in achieving sustainable fishing practices.
In “Bangladesh in India’s Maritime Strategy towards the Bay of Bengal: Towards a Comprehensive Indo-Pacific Outlook”, Sayantan Haldar looks at the potential of Bangladesh in India’s maritime strategy in the Bay of Bengal, in light of the shifting focus on the emergent Indo-Pacific. The article argues that India’s maritime strategy in the Bay of Bengal is a driver of its wider engagement in the emerging Indo-Pacific. Therefore, engaging Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal is a strategic imperative for India. However, this requires New Delhi to deepen and expand its strategic convergences with Bangladesh and also to ensure that Dhaka warms to the idea of an emergent Indo-Pacific that might even prompt geopolitical and geo-strategic competition with China.
The importance of the maritime domain to relations between nations, regions and, indeed, globally, cannot be over-emphasized. A plethora of writing is now available on a variety of issues that are key to deepening our understanding of all things maritime. One way of introducing a new set of readers to this important and interesting subject is via book reviews. In-depth and serious reviews can often open a new subject of research to the lay scholar and deepen the understanding of a subject matter expert. This issue accordingly concludes with a review by Krithi Ganesh, of a very interesting and recently published book authored by Commodore Abhay Kumar Singh, entitled, “India-China Rivalry: Asymmetric No Longer”.
It is hoped that going forward, we will continue to receive interest from readers and contributors in publishing competent research articles and book reviews in the journal. For the immediate present, “Happy Reading”.