Need for New Maritime Organization in Asia
There are calls for a new institution to manage Asia’s maritime disputes - a proposal for Maritime Organization for Security and Cooperation (AMOSC) is in the offing.
Last year (2014) brought new tensions to the South China Sea, particularly as Chinese authorities sought to establish a series of island-like structures in the midst of the disputed Spratly Islands.
Such provocative actions, however, are unlikely to generate sufficient political will among the other countries of the region to establish a Political-Security Community under the auspices of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) by the 2015 deadline.
But were this collection of ten countries to pool their resources into a security community or even a security alliance, it would be an impressive force and a potential deterrent to aggression in the South China Sea.
The varied nature of the waters disputed in the South China Sea particularly requires the flexibility offered by corvettes among ASEAN countries.
According to a report in the Diplomat, Ken Sato, president of the Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS) said that East Asia still does not have a permanent organization or regional body to address maritime security issues. He proposed the establishment of AMOSC.
AMOSC's central goal would be to prevent and manage existing maritime disputes between countries by enhancing domain awareness, improving capacity-building and enacting confidence-building measures.
Sato also said in his remarks that this would be a very timely proposal given Japan’s recent meetings with both China and the United States as well as the fact that 2015 marks the year of ASEAN-China maritime cooperation.
