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、印度等快速发展中国家在国际事务中的影响力日益增强，这在很大程度上已成为不争的事实。然而，这种明显具有历史意义的国际秩序转变的程度及其对“亚洲世纪”如何治理世界的影响仍在激烈争论中。特别是，中国卷入海洋领土争端以及与美国在航行自由问题上的对抗，被广泛视为新兴大国正在寻求重新定义国际秩序的主要准则的证据，比如《联合国海洋法公约》（UNCLOS）所规定的准则。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行为体战略思维的影响，并反过来为其提供了信息。此外，美国、日本、澳大利亚和印度的战略和愿景强调，海洋是促进国家繁荣的广阔空间，同时也隐藏着对国家安全的严重威胁。欧盟也发现了蓝色经济的巨大潜力，并通过维护所谓的印度洋和太平洋基于规则的秩序，加强了海上互联互通的努力。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日益加剧的紧张关系，使印度-太平洋海洋政治成为评估国际秩序转型的一个关键维度的合适视角。因此，本研究解决了以下现象：1)政府在领土争端上的强硬立场，特别是在东中国海和南中国海；2)通过扩大专属经济和国防相关分区来推进对海洋的主权控制；3)通过努力确保全球通信线路的安全，将印度洋和太平洋连接起来并军事化。综上所述，这些发展提出了主要的研究问题：国际规范是如何构建海洋空间的？反过来，空间的社会建构又是如何影响规范的解释和应用的？这个问题将通过考察以下几个次要问题来回答：1)1982年《联合国海洋法公约》签署时，领土主权和海洋自由规范是如何定义的；2)从20世纪80年代到现在，印度太平洋地区主要行为体对海洋领土主权和海洋自由的看法和做法是如何演变的；3)这些做法如何改变了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.