Transforming orders: how ‘Indo-Pacific’ geopolitics reconstruct maritime space and alter the law of the sea’s territorial sovereignty and freedom of the seas norms

中国和印度等快速发展中国家在国际事务中的影响力日益增强，这已成为一个基本上不容置疑的现实。然而，国际秩序的这一明显的历史性转变的程度及其对“亚洲世纪”世界将如何治理的后果仍然存在激烈的争论。特别是，中国卷入海洋领土争端和与美国在航行自由问题上的对抗被广泛认为是新兴大国正在寻求重新定义国际秩序的主要规范的证据，其中包括《联合国海洋法公约》（UNCLOS）。然而，对海洋的重新关注表明了一个更广泛的现象。中国发现以海洋资源为基础的“蓝色经济”是实现其长期“民族复兴”目标的新增长引擎，包括通过海上丝绸之路互联互通战略，这一发现受到了其他参与者战略思维的影响。此外，美国、日本、澳大利亚和印度的战略和愿景都强调海洋是为促进国家繁荣提供巨大机会的空间，但同时也对国家安全构成严重威胁。欧洲联盟也发现了蓝色经济的巨大潜力，并通过维护印度洋和太平洋所谓的基于规则的秩序，加强了加强海上连通性的努力。体现在海洋自由规范中的全球流动与体现在领土主权规范中的领土身份之间的紧张关系日益加剧，使印度-太平洋海洋政治成为评估国际秩序转型关键层面的合适透镜。因此，本研究探讨了各国政府1）对领土争端，特别是在东中国海和南中国海的领土争端采取强硬立场，2）通过扩大专属经济和国防相关区域来推进对海洋空间的主权控制，3）通过努力确保全球通信线路来连接和军事化印度洋和太平洋。综合起来，这些事态发展提出了主要的研究问题：国际规范如何构成海洋空间，以及反过来，空间的社会结构如何影响规范的解释和适用？这个问题将通过审查次要问题来回答1）1982年签署《联合国海洋法公约》时领土主权和海洋自由规范是如何定义的，2）印度-太平洋关键行为体对海洋领土主权和海洋自由的看法和实践是如何发展的。从20世纪80年代到现在，以及3）这些做法如何改变了国际秩序和国际海洋法（对国际秩序和国际海洋法的看法）。

The growing influence in international affairs of fast-developing countries such as China and India has become a largely unquestioned reality. However, the extent of this apparently historic transformation of international order(s) and its consequences for how the world will be governed in the ‘Asian Century’ remain hotly debated. In particular, China’s embroilment in maritime territorial disputes and confrontations with the United States over the freedom of navigation are widely taken as evidence that the rising powers are seeking to redefine major norms of international order such as they are, among others, codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Yet, the renewed focus on the oceans is indicative of a broader phenomenon. China’s discovery of the marine resources-based ‘blue economy’ as a new growth engine for realising its long-standing ‘national rejuvenation’ goal, including through the Maritime Silk Road connectivity strategy, has been influenced by, and in turn informed, other actors’ strategic thinking. Also the US, Japanese and Australian and Indian strategies and visions emphasise the seas as spaces offering vast opportunities for the furthering of national prosperity while simultaneously harbouring grave threats to national security. The European Union, too, discovered great potential in the blue economy and enhanced its efforts to strengthen maritime connectivity through safeguarding the so-called rules-based order across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The heightening tensions between global flows embodied in the freedom of the seas norm, and territorial identities enshrined in the norm of territorial sovereignty, make Indo-Pacific maritime politics a suitable lens for assessing a crucial dimension of transforming international order(s). Therefore, this study addresses the phenomena of governments’ 1) hardening stances over territorial disputes, especially in the East and South China Seas, 2) advancing of sovereign control over maritime space through the expansion of exclusive economic and defence-related zoning, and 3) linking and militarisation of the Indian and Pacific Oceans through efforts to secure global communication lines. Taken together, these developments raise the main research question: How do international norms structure maritime space, and how do social constructions of space, conversely, affect the interpretation and application of norms? This question will be answered by examining the secondary questions 1) how the territorial sovereignty and freedom of the seas norms were defined at the time of the UNCLOS-signing in 1982, 2) how key Indo-Pacific actors’ views and practices of maritime territorial sovereignty and of the freedom of the seas have evolved from the 1980s until the present, and 3) how these practices have altered (perceptions of) international order(s) and of the international law of the sea.