Post Brexit Uk Readies To Join Us In Fonops

Post Brexit Uk Readies To Join Us In Fonops

- Veerle Nouwens

The United States conducted another Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) on 17 January 2018, the first of this year. It was met with a fierce response from Chinese media, including a new turn in reasoning for the militarisation of its artificial islands in the Spratly’s. Namely, that the United States’ exercise of rights upheld in the United Nation’s Convention on the Laws of the Sea is of such a threat that China must fortify its self-defence capabilities on the artificial islands. However, the US will no longer be the only player openly defying Chinese maritime claims when the United Kingdom sends a Royal Navy frigate to conduct a FONOP through the South China Sea in March. Beijing is not pleased.

For all the criticism that the Trump administration has received for what has seemed to be a lack of a comprehensive strategy in the Asia-Pacific, it has made clear that FONOPs are here to stay. President Trump has used strong rhetoric against China, at times referencing its island building in the South China Sea. Speaking to the New York Times on 4 April 2016, Trump stated that China was building “a military fortress the likes of which perhaps the world has not seen.” FONOPs under the Trump administration started slowly. The first took place on 24 May 2017 and saw the USS Dewey sail within 12 nautical miles (nm) of Mischief Reef. By doing this, the US in effect conducted a high-seas FONOP, rather than innocent passage, underlining that Mischief Reef was a lowtide elevation that under UNCLOS has no rights to maritime territory except a 500 metre safety zone, as was determined by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in its ruling on 12 July 2016.