One Ocean, Many Currents: China’s Norm-Shaping Campaign at Sea and Europe’s Fragmented Response
Niklas Swanström writes in this issue brief that Europe’s maritime disputes and cooperation with China are usually analyzed one sea at a time. He writes that the South China Sea is a question of security and law, the Gulf and Red Sea chokepoints are problems of energy and navigation, the Arctic is a matter of science and shipping, and the high seas are a matter of biodiversity. Swanström argues that the four theaters are better read as a single Chinese campaign for authority over the rules of the ocean, that is, durable access to, and influence within, the institutions that write and operationalize maritime governance, combined with a refusal to be bound by the rules Beijing dislikes. The same pattern and interests recur across the BBNJ High Seas Treaty, the International Seabed Authority, the Antarctic Commission, the maritime chokepoints, and the Arctic. Where Beijing runs one campaign, Brussels runs four separate files, each featuring its own lead service and timeline. The asymmetry is sharpened by American withdrawal from ocean multilateralism, which is pushing the European Union (EU) into tense functional cooperation with China even as bilateral rivalry deepens. Surveying the evidence in each arena, Swanström identifies where the thesis is most testable and argues that Europe’s central task is administrative: it must stop treating one campaign as four files, using a new reinforced European Ocean Pact as the vehicle. Read and download the issue brief here.
