On September 28 and 29, Zhou Bo, senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy of Tsinghua University, and Hu Bo, researcher at the School of International Studies of Peking University, participated in a seminar titled “Maritime Security Management in Asia and Europe” held by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The event aimed to identify a more comprehensive path to preventing naval incidents and crises by comparing lessons learned in maritime risk management in the East and South China Seas and in the Black Sea and Baltic Sea.

Zhou Bo introduced the implementation of the China-US maritime military security consultation mechanism and the Rules of Behavior for Safety of Air and Maritime Encounters, noting that the root cause of why the mechanism has remained stalled is the difference in the understanding of “security.” For China, it means strategic security, and the US demand—which is equivalent to asking China to guarantee its security while it conducts hostile maneuvers against China—is an unreasonable one.

Discussion on air and maritime encounters should be based on specific circumstances, as their legal and political significance varies by region, said Hu Bo. In recent years, the interaction between US and Chinese forces in most areas, while not friendly, has been handled in a professional and secure manner. However, the risk of friction can be high when US forces approach China’s mainland and its territorial airspace and waters, a situation in which China has no choice but to take measures to safeguard its sovereignty, security and people as a sovereign state. For China, such encounters are caused entirely by the excessive provocation of US forces, which can only be addressed at the strategic level on the US side.