The Sea Rights And Interests Of China In The Process Of Peaceful Development

China’s peaceful development is one of the most significant subjects in the contemporary international community. Abandoning the big powers’ rising road by force in history, China chooses the road of peaceful development and realizes her own strength in the framework of the current international order in order to reduce the adverse effect to the international community as much as possible, and then make the international community willing to accept China’s peaceful development. However, the objective reality is that developed countries have occupied most of the resources in the international community, which means China will inevitably enter into conflict with these countries. How to obtain the resources has become a primary issue that must be considered in the process of China’s peaceful development. The anticipation of land resource exploitation exhaustion is becoming increasingly strong, and the cost of further exploitation and the marginal utility are also becoming too high and progressively decreasing. In the twenty-first century, seas occupy the total area of 71% of the earth, which is an important strategic resource base in the world, the main carrier of the world trade and the important stage of safeguarding national sovereignty and security.Historically, there are two basic forms of sea contribution to a nation’s development, one is sea power, and another one is sea rights and interests. Sea power is closely related to the model of rise by force, which is gradually limited after the Second World War. Peace, development and cooperation have become the trend in the world. Under such circumstances, sea rights and interests have played more and more important role in the national development than sea power. However, the function of sea power doesn’t disappear, but it has been restricted. The relationship between sea power and sea rights and interests is means and purposes, both of which play important roles in the national development. The trend of economic globalization, the theme of peace and development and the interdependence among nations make sea rights and interests become the first element, which makes epoch-making progress in the history of national development.Material sea rights and interests, conceptual sea rights and interests and institutional sea rights and interests are three manifestations of sea rights and interests. Material sea rights and interests mainly include political sea rights and interests, security sea rights and interests, economic sea rights and interests, ocean channel sea rights and interests and scientific research sea rights and interests; conceptual sea rights and interests chiefly consist of the concept of sea space, the concept of competition and the concept of sea resources; institutional sea rights and interests mainly contain the territorial sea institution, exclusive economic institution, continental shelf institution, high sea institution and international seabed area institution.The sea rights and interests, which are based on the "Sea Charter"—the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, have strong normative ability and the ability to decide whether a national sea action is legal or not. Those who haven’t joined the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea also dare not openly oppose it, and often regard their ocean behaviors as the pursuit and maintenance of their sea rights and interests. Normative ability of the sea rights and interests is mainly embodied in the construction capacity of the concept of the sea rights and interests and of the causal shaping ability of institutional sea rights and interests and material sea rights and interests. It is for the normative ability that the sea rights and interests permeate through a country’s national development. The sea rights and interests are constantly shaping the nature of China’s peaceful development, prompting the level of China’s peaceful development to increase day-by-day.The era of globalization makes the national interest more and more exoscopic, breaking through the national territorial restrictions and penetrating into every corner of the world by sea. National development has given a priority to the sea rights and interests. Since the reform and opening-up, China has been following the path of peaceful development, and its dependence on foreign resources and overseas trade has been increasing unprecedentedly. Sea security rights and interests, sea economy rights and interests, sea politics rights and interests, sea thoroughfare rights and interests and sea scientific research rights and interests have become crucial to China’s peaceful development and now determine the success of China’s peaceful development. There is a significant positive correlation between China’s peaceful development and sea rights and interests. The future of China’s peaceful development depends on the protection, absorption and utilization of the sea rights and interests.The sea rights and interests acting on China’s peaceful development has experienced three periods:limited contact, comprehensive docking and in-depth integration. At present, though this process was finalized yet, it has fully proved that there is inseparable relationship between the phased achievements of China’s peaceful development and the support of China’s sea rights and interests. Continuous input of the sea rights and interests is the essential condition of China’s peaceful development. Therefore, the settlement of the sea rights and interests disputes surrounding China has become the basic precondition for the success of China’s peaceful development. With more and more China’s sea rights and interests permeating into China’s peaceful development, the level of China’s peaceful development practice will become higher and higher.Obviously, China’s sea rights and interests have three basic characteristics—globality, cooperation and legitimacy, which means the accepted international laws and the modern international law of the sea have laid the foundation for China’s maintaining and expanding sea rights and interests and China’s action will not undermine the existing international sea order. China’s global sea rights and interests mean that China’s peaceful development should not be confined to the Chinese Mainland and its territorial waters, and should expand to the international public sea area; China’s cooperative sea rights and interests show that China follows the way of international cooperation to maintain and expand sea rights and interests in the process of China’s peaceful development and is resolved to solve sea international disputes by peaceful means; China’s legitimate sea rights and interests indicate the justification of the maintenance and absorption of sea rights and interests in the process of China’s peaceful development.China’s sea rights and interests include the sea rights and interests within and outside the jurisdiction of China which is called the international public sea area, about 250 million square kilometers in size. The international public sea area is an important space where China expands its sea rights and interests, an important source of sea power construction resources and an important space to practice the idea of harmonious sea. At present, it is worthwhile to note that sea rights and interests disputes among china and her neighbors have exerted inhibitory impact on the process of China’s peaceful development. Although the inhibitory impact can’t change the course of China’s peaceful development, China should attach great importance to it. Since the sea rights and interests disputes among china and her neighbors can’t be fundamentally resolved in a fairly long period of time, China must pay great importance to the international public sea area in order to safeguard, absorb and utilize sea rights and interests to compensate for its losses which are caused by the sea rights and interests disputes among China and her neighbors. Above all, China should focus on enhancing the ability to maintain and expand the sea rights and interests in the international public sea area.The benign interaction between Sea rights and interests and China’s peaceful development is not only the basic route, but also the best choice of China’s sea power construction. Sea rights and interests can provide the basic condition of China’s peaceful development; meanwhile, China’s peaceful development can also guide, protect and standardize the absorption and utilization of China’s sea rights and interests, which is both the discard of sea power construction road in history, and a great innovation of the theory and practice of China’s sea power construction.China’s sustainable, rapid and healthy peaceful development needs three basic conditions, which are sufficient supply of resources, peaceful sea security environment and smooth sea strategic channel. Currently, the sea rights and interests disputes among China and her neighboring countries have adverse influence on China’s peaceful development, which is taken seriously. In some sense, the speed, depth and width of the integration of sea rights and interests into China’s peaceful development determine the prospect of China’s peaceful development.