21st Century Maritime Silk Road: A Peaceful Way Forward

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (shortened to “Maritime Silk Road” hereafter) initiative represents China’s consistent theme of peace and development. It is conducive to achieve common prosperity and progress of human society. However, challenges and opportunities often coexist. The Maritime Silk Road links the South China Sea and the northern Indian Ocean, involving a large number of countries, a wide range, and long distances. The challenging natural environment, scarcity of electricity and freshwater resources, different political and cultural bases, etc. greatly increase the difficulty of constructing the Maritime Silk Road. Obviously, an understanding the characteristics of the marine environment, energy, legal counsel and so on is a prerequisite for the safe and efficient construction of the Maritime Silk Road. However, relatively weak basic research and scarce marine data seriously restrict the full implementation of the Maritime Silk Road initiative and urgently need to be addressed. This chapter discusses the significance and challenges of the Maritime Silk Road initiative and provides corresponding countermeasures.

The sea surface wind field plays an important role in navigation, ocean engineering, disaster prevention and reduction, reef runway construction, take-off and landing of carrier planes, and so on. The Maritime Silk Road is located in the monsoon region, where there are obvious seasonal variations. It is also often invaded by tropical cyclones. Therefore, in-depth research on the wind climate of the Maritime Silk Road will make a positive contribution to the development of offshore wind energy as well as disaster prevention and reduction, which is presented in this chapter.

The ocean wave has a significant impact on the safety and cost of navigation, wave energy resources development, seawall design, ocean engineering, island and reef construction, disaster prevention and reduction, air-sea interaction, global climate change and so on. Previous researchers have made a great contribution to the wave climate analysis of the China seas. However, there are few studies on the wave climate of the northern Indian Ocean, so there is no detailed reference for the construction of the Maritime Silk Road. In this chapter, the wave climate of the Maritime Silk Road is analyzed based on ERA-interim wave reanalysis data from the European Centre For Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and WW3 hindcast wave data forced by the CMIP5 wind data, systematically including the seasonal characteristics of wave direction and wave height, wave rose (co-occurrence of wave height and wave direction), rough sea occurrence, the annual trend of significant wave height (SWH), extreme wave height, the future wave field, etc., to provide a reference for navigation, ocean engineering, wave energy development, disaster prevention and reduction, and so on.

As a basic motion of all the world’s oceans, ocean currents play an important role in the development of marine fisheries, surface primary productivity, material transportation, humanitarian assistance such as the placement and arrangement of mines, buoy movement, determining the location of underwater equipment, and so on. Intensive study of the surface winds, waves, currents, and other marine environmental factors can provide a scientific basis for sociological marine construction activities and humanitarian assistance. Cold and warm currents have an influence on the coastal climate, as during the Younger Dryas event about 11–10 Ka BP. In addition, areas where cold and warm currents intersect are the world’s most famous fishing grounds, as these areas are rich in nutrients. In the polar seas, currents also influence navigation by affecting the motion of sea ice. Recently, the Indo-Pacific region (IPR), the Indonesian Through Flow (ITF), and the Agulhas current have become hot spots for studying climate change. There are few research papers on Indian Ocean currents, and the scattered papers that do exist are focused on hot spots such as the ITF or on the effects of the IPR on the climate of China. On the basis of the reanalysis of current data, this chapter briefly introduces the characteristics and seasonal variations of currents in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea (~20°S–30°N, ~30°E–130°E) to make a contribution to national marine construction and strategic planning.

Under the background of a shortage of conventional resources (such as coal and oil) and overfishing of inshore fishery resources, countries all over the world are paying special attention to energy strategies. China has also been paying special attention to energy strategies, as realized through equal trade. In addition, China also actively promotes the development and utilization of renewable energy, which is undoubtedly an effective method to deal with climate change and ease the energy crisis. Since ancient times, the ocean has been the cradle of human life, and it is also a huge treasure house of resources, including the following: a wide range of biological resources, rich mineral resources, chemical resources, and inexhaustible power resources. Exploitation of marine resources can strongly guarantee the survival of human society and sustainable development during the 21st century. A thorough understanding of the resources involved in the relevant seas will be conducive to the efficient and rational exploitation and utilization of marine resources. In this chapter, the characteristics of marine resources in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean are analyzed, which will contribute to the construction of the Maritime Silk Road, benefit international marine development and construction, and promote the sustainable development of human society.

To better serve the Maritime Silk Road, the characteristics of important routes, nodes, and ports are analyzed in this chapter, including geographical position, climatic conditions, hydrological characteristics, commercial value, and humanistic background.

The Maritime Silk Road, which began in China, connects Asia, Africa, and Europe through commercial trade. Historically, the Maritime Silk Road, with its core goals of equality and mutual benefit, cooperation, and win-win scenarios, has promoted the exchange and development of politics, economy, and culture between the East and West. In September and October 2013, during a state visit to Central Asian countries and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Chinese President Xi Jinping made a speech in which he proposed building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road. The marine environment has a significant impact on ocean construction, the maintenance of maritime rights and interests, and so on. To serve the construction of the Maritime Silk Road, we systematically presented information on the marine environment, important routes and port features, geographical features, climatic profiles, marine resources, and the utilization status of the Maritime Silk Road. To make a better contribution to the construction of the Maritime Silk Road, legal escort is essential. Legal escort is helpful to protect the rights, interests, and enthusiasm of countries and regions that participate in the construction of the Maritime Silk Road. This chapter discusses the legitimacy and rationality of development and construction in the South China Sea and the Maritime Silk Road according to the United Nations Charter, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Declaration on the Code of Conduct on the South China Sea, and the China–ASEAN Agreements in the hope of providing a reference for the legal protection of the Maritime Silk Road.

Due to the lack of systematic basic theoretical support, there is no professional application system for the Maritime Silk Road either at home or abroad, which is urgently required by ocean navigation, remote islands and reefs construction, ocean engineering design, resource development, disaster prevention and mitigation, and so on. Since 2015, Zheng Chong-wei’s team has presented research on the management and plan for 21st Century Maritime Silk Road for the first time at home and abroad. This series of research systematically and finely analyzes the characteristics of the marine environment, as well as marine energy, important routes and port characteristics, geographical features, climate features, legal escort, and so on. Based on the previous research, we first analyze the importance and urgency of the construction of a comprehensive application platform for the Maritime Silk Road. We then propose to construct a professional application system for the Maritime Silk Road, covering the marine environment, resources, humanities, geography, economy, and legal cases to provide scientific reference for the national decision-makers, researchers, and marine engineering personnel related to the construction of the Maritime Silk Road.