India protests US Navy ship’s transit through its waters without consent | Hacker News Reader

India protests US Navy ship’s transit through its waters without consent

scmp.com

From the South China Morning Post. I wonder why a newspaper in China would print a story about another country complaining about the US Navy transiting through their EEZ waters? I wonder why this article is trying to confuse people about transit rights and EEZ and International Waters? You don't think the South China Morning Post might have another goal?

The US media posts stories about China violating other sovereign waterways all the time. Why are we salty about China doing the same thing?

The EEZ (200nm from shore) is not part of the sovereign territory of a nation. The territorial waters (~12nm from shore) are.

> From the South China Morning Post. I wonder why a newspaper in China would print a story about another country complaining about the US Navy transiting through their EEZ waters?

Arguably, this works equally well ot better if you reverse it to “about India complaining about a foreign navy transiting through their EEZ waters” and retain the rest of thr post as is.

SCMP is Hong Kong based. Probably the largest English language paper in Asia and has been around for ages. It is also quite critical of mainland China.

Here is the same story from an Indian newspaper:

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-protests-us-nav...

Hong Kong is inside China and a lot has been happening in recent years as we become more integrated with the mainland. Also, SCMP has been owned by Alibaba for the past five years and since then has been a lot less editorially independent.

But The Hindu writes the same story, so surely this is not relevant here?

No, it's still relevant. The US Operations whole intent was to challenge China's expanding territorial sea claims, and more generally to reaffirm the Freedom of Navigation in accordance with International law (and not just against China), something the US Navy does often across the globe. It's not the first time it's done this in these waters either. China would absolutely seize the opportunity to amplify and focus on the protests of a US ally that feels the US had violated their waters/domestic laws in some way.

A propaganda outlet seizing on the opportunity to focus on a disagreement between allies that it's antagonistic with is unsurprising. Just because The Hindu and the SCMP both reported on the incident does not itself vindicate the SCMP or it's reporting. Note the difference in reporting between the SCMP and The Hindu (Indian) with regard to the detail spent on the Exclusive Economic Zone, Domestic Waters, counterclaims from the US, etc.

EEZ =/= Internationally Recognized Territorial Waters. This was not a violation of Sovereign Territory. The real story here (if there is one at all) is the US not giving India a heads up ahead of time (which it's not required to do, but it would be a friendly gesture among allies). Meanwhile the SCMP makes it sound like the USN violated sovereign territory, and is capitalizing and small political spat between friends to justify it's own complaints against the US (and others) not recognizing the CCP's territorial overreach

From the Wikipedia article on the South China Morning Post:

Since the change of ownership in 2016, it has been alleged to be on a mission to promote China's soft power abroad.[9] According to critics, it is moving away from independent journalism and pioneering a new form of "propaganda".[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post

There's a lot more in the article on bias at that organization. Bottom line: this publication carries propaganda, and the Chinese government has strong incentive to drive a wedge between India and the U.S.

SCMP didn't write the article. It's a syndicated piece from Reuters.

EEZs do not regulate the transit of ships, and this is very clear in the treaty. India's domestic law has no relevance here. The purpose of the freedom of navigation exercise (and publicizing it, as the former chief of naval staff complained about, is to demonstrate that other countries are free to sail in international waters.

Thanks. The relevant section is here:

> In the exclusive economic zone, all States, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy, subject to the relevant provisions of this Convention, the freedoms referred to in article 87 of navigation and overflight and of the laying of submarine cables and pipelines, and other internationally lawful uses of the sea related to these freedoms, such as those associated with the operation of ships, aircraft and submarine cables and pipelines, and compatible with the other provisions of this Convention.

https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...

It is just baffling to me that a reporter could write this article and not mention this, or ask an Indian official how their assertions are compatible with it.

It’s baffling how US can quote the international treaty it’s not a signatory to (US hasn’t ratified UNCLOS).

> It’s baffling how US can quote the international treaty it’s not a signatory

The US is a signatory of the UNCLOS. It has not acceded to the UNCLOS by way of ratification, but being a signatory without accession has legal significance in international law.

Further, the US views the UNCLOS largely as codification of rules already binding in customary international law, so it is neither surprising that it would cite these rules in the particular articulation another party has explicitly accepted.

> The US is a signatory of the UNCLOS.

No. It is not.

It's signed an agreement relating to a bit of the 1982 version: https://www.un.org/Depts/los/reference_files/UNCLOS%20Status...

And it signed the first one in 1958.

That’s correct. Had I not mossed the edit window, I would have updated the grandparent: the US has a more complicated relationship with UNCLOS.

In short: it didn’t sign because of objections to Part XI, signed an Agreement regarding implementation of Part XI that it cannot formally accede to without acceding to the Convention, hasn't acceded to either, and is arguably (given the incorporation of the Convention’s purposes in the Agreement) in a generally similar position to a non-ratifying signatory of the Convention by virtue of being such with respect to the Agreement.

It isn't just that the U.S. hasn't ratified UNCLOS, the U.S. never signed it to begin with.

Nevertheless, the United States has said repeatedly that it views the FON provisions as customary international law. Indeed, they are largely copied from the 1958 Convention on the High Seas (which the United States ratified in 1962) and the 1958 Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone (which the United States ratified in 1961).

Well if they don't follow the treaty they can sail wherever they like.

The media constantly writes incorrect things if it's sensationalist enough to get eyeballs.

There's zero accountability for the media.

> There's zero accountability for the media.

In this context, I'm not sure what you mean. SCMP is a Chinese mouthpiece.

Who would be holding them accountable?

Is there any news media that's not a mouthpiece for some group?

This isn't a SCMP article, it's a syndicated piece from Reuters.

SCMP is owned by the CCP how?

Wrong convention, the USA only signed the one from '58, so correct link is this: https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...

There's no difference in the texts on this case though, with both saying you have the freedom of navigation right, and the bit that says

> [show] due regard to the rights and duties of the coastal State and shall comply with the laws and regulations adopted by the coastal State in accordance with the provisions of this Convention

Thanks, useful clarification. However, I'll mention that although that's the one that the US signed it's not necessarily the one India would appeal to, depending on the exact nature of the complaint (which I think we can't really discern from the article). If the later version of UNLOS had granted that India had the right to refuse navigation of its EEZ to other countries, then it could complain about the US violating a widely accepted standard even if the US didn't sign it. Countries make those complaints all the time (reasonable or not), and as mentioned elsewhere in this thread

> the United States has said repeatedly that it views the FON provisions as customary international law.

So it's quite notable that even the most recent UNLOS don't grant India this right.

Kind of a terrible article. It basically comes down to whether military vessels can pass through the Exclusive Economic Zone (the “Economic” suggests an answer), but the article fails to either quote the relevant section of the treaty or quote a purported expert, so we’re left wondering.

This was a 'freedom of navigation' exercise and the entire point is that you do not ask permission. Ever.

Asking permission presumes that the other party has an opportunity to say 'no', and an FON transit is to show that these international waters are in fact international and not under any particular national jurisdiction. If India wants to complain they can talk to the hand as far as the US is concerned, same answer as would be given to China if these ships were to transit the Taiwan straights, or England and France if they went through the channel.

The channel is only about 15 miles wide. Wouldn't that be inside the territorial waters of France and England and therefore require permission to sail through?

Good point, it probably is :) I was looking for some other example that would have been potentially provocative to a clear ally and was coming up short. But it turns out the USN actually publishes a list of the places where they engage in these exercises and the specific claims that they are refuting through the exercise (https://news.usni.org/2021/03/10/pentagon-2020-freedom-of-na...) so anyone who wants to can run down the list and see allies like Korea on the list in addition to countries like China and Iran where the relationship is a bit more contentious.

They don't actually need permission to transit the Channel, as long as they don't stop or conduct military operations in territorial waters. The Channel is subject to the right of "innocent passage", and both China and Russia transit it at will.

Re Secion 3 of https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...

(Although you're correct that it's not equivalent; most the restrictions listed don't apply to the EEZ. It's in the name, the Exclusive Economic zone gives them exclusive economic rights - most activities that have no economic impact are allowed.)

What is truly shocking is just how bizzare this US policy is. They just pick a country at random one day and go there to do a "FONO" and just generally rub in the fact that no country can afford to cut relation with them. They have done this to pretty much every country by now, China, Russia, Pakistan, Taiwan, Indonesia, India, S.Korea etc.

Compare this to China's foreign policy. Their public image got damaged in 2019 because of coronavirus. But in terms of international relationships they have made the most progress in the last three years. Not even offical US sanctions have been able to stop them (with Russia, Iran and Turkey).

It's not random, it's a very specific act. They challenge claims they don't recognise to prevent them becoming accepted as de-facto. For an analogy that'd be "closer to home", it's very similar to defending a trademark to prevent it becoming generic.

The fact that India claims this right doesn't extend to military vessels (despite UNCLOS allowing it) is what requires this action. If they seek permission first, they're not defending the right, they're cementing that permission is required.

> What is truly shocking is just how bizzare this US policy is.

It’s neither bizarre nor an exclusively US thing. In the South China Sea all of Japan, Australia, the UK, and France have conducted FONOPs.

> They just pick a country at random one day

No, FONOPs are conducted against countries that have asserted the right to close waters to free navigation in coontravention of the UNCLOS (if its not the US doing it) or customary international law whose requirements happen to be substantially identical to UNCLOS in this area (if its the US doing it.)

They are very far from random (if they were random, it would seem to indicate that the Pentagon has a 20-sided die with “People’s Republic of China” on, like, 16 or so faces.)

Referring to the EEZ as "its waters" is disingenuous. A nation's territorial waters are much, much smaller than its EEZ.

To the powers that be at HN, a suggestion.

I don't like the fact that people can flag articles. But if you are going to allow that, can you at least require a comment from the flagger explaining under which provision of HN's policy they are flagging the post?

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