美国传统基金会-联合国海洋法公约：中国、印度和美国在一个悬而未决的政权中航行（英文）-2021.4正文版.pdf

BACKGROUNDER No. 3608 | April 30, 2021 AS iAN STUD iES CENTEr UNCLOS: China, India, and the United States Navigate an Unsettled Regime Jeff M. Smith hile there is a widely accepted international KEY TAKEAWAYS law of the sea, reflected in the U.N. Conven- Wtion on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Disputes over freedom of navigation great powers of the world are divided over competing represent a volatile fault line in U.S.–China and, in some cases, incompatible, domestic maritime relations, and a point of growing strategic convergence between the U.S. and india. laws or interpretations of UNCLOS. The areas of dis- agreement extend to fundamental principles, such as which waters lie under a nation state’s jurisdiction and How China, india, and the U.S. define what it is entitled to do, and forbid, in those waters. freedom of navigation, develop maritime strategies, and navigate differences will Compounding the problem, some of the sharpest affect the maritime order for years to divisions have emerged between the world’s two come. increasingly antagonistic superpowers, C