China’s challenging of an Indian naval vessel in the SouthChina Sea is another step in its campaign to assert maritime claims in the region. Despite numerous spats with smaller regional powers, such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia, China has never before challenged Asia’s other rising power at sea.

China’s assertiveness should come as no surprise. Its economic surge both encourages and enables it to take a more energetic approach to securing the raw materials and shipping lanes on which its future prosperity depends. Given that untold quantities of crude oil and natural gas lie beneath the contested waters of the SouthChina Sea, clashing claims are all but inevitable.

This makes finding a means of resolving such disputes all the more important. Ideally, this would take the form of a multilateral settlement of the competing territorial claims of the littoral states. The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea – to which China is a party – provides the basis for such an agreement in the case of the SouthChina Sea. But progress has so far been stymied by China’s unwillingness to submit its extravagant claims to arbitration by third parties.