“International waters are international waters. We’re sailing through.” Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, left nothing to doubt when the German Navy frigate Baden-Württemberg and her accompanying supply vessel sailed from South Korea to the Philippines on September 10 via the shortest route — the Taiwan Strait.
They did so even though the Germans knew that Beijing might choose to be offended. And there was another remarkable aspect to the Baden-Württemberg’s journey: German industry approved of it.
The Chinese backlash employed standard-issue fulminations. Germany was questioning China’s sovereignty, increasing security risks and “sending the wrong signal,” according to official statements.
In fact, and according to law, China is wrong. Paragraph 17 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) lays out the conditions under which ships are allowed to sail through other countries’ territorial waters.
“Subject to this Convention, ships of all States, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea.” So when, in August, a Chinese destroyer and a support ship sailed through the narrows of the English Channel, they were within their rights, albeit shadowed by a Royal Navy frigate throughout.
Russian shadow merchant vessels, aging and practically uninsured, transporting crude oil above the price cap, also have the right to sail through the waters of any country they fancy, even though that exposes such countries to considerable risks of oil spills.
And in international waters, the large expanse of water beyond coastal states’ 12-nautical mile boundary, ships really have the right to travel wherever they like. The Taiwan Strait is the main passage for ships traveling between Southeast Asia and Japan, South Korea, and northern China. Though it’s 200 nautical miles wide, only a lane some 15 miles across is deep enough for modern ships.
Beijing argues it has “sovereignty and jurisdiction” over the strait, while Taiwan and many other countries consider it international waters. For decades, coexistence has been achieved thanks to the “median line”, which functions as an unofficial maritime border.
The Baden-Württemberg is participating in an Indo-Pacific deployment that involves several exercises in the area. Taking the shortest route should, of course, not be noteworthy, but in the Taiwan Strait, China has been asserting itself to such a point that it is indeed considered a big deal when foreign naval vessels sail through.
And in the spring of 2023, after then-President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan traveled to California to visit then-US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Beijing responded by launching a military exercise practicing an attack on Taiwan — and by dispatching what it called an inspection flotilla to the Taiwan Strait. The mission was to inspect merchant vessels traveling on both sides of the median line: an unmistakable reminder that Beijing has no intention of accepting the internationally honored median line (much as it refuses to accept an international court’s 2016 ruling on its land grab in the South China Sea.)
Because China is regularly harassing its maritime neighbors these days (which includes recent ramming attacks against Philippine coastguard vessels), the US Navy issues regular reminders of the rules of the high seas by conducting freedom-of-navigation operations (FONOPs), which demonstrate ships’ right to innocent passage. The Royal Navy and French Navy have also conducted FONOPs.
Germany’s navy is not a regular practitioner of FONOPs, last doing so in 2002. But it clearly hopes to signal it is unintimidated by Chinese saber rattling and that, as a trading nation, it has a key interest in freedom of navigation. That’s a major step for Germany, which for decades has reasoned that if countries really try to be nice to one another, most problems can be solved.
The Baden-Württemberg was not only accompanied by the supply ship Frankfurt am Main but also by something more unexpected: support from the German industry. “German industry supports the Federal Government in its efforts to maintain the already eroding rules-based international order,” Wolfgang Niedermark, a senior executive at the Federation of German Industry, told the German daily Handelsblatt.
Niedermark added that rules only work if they’re applied consistently and without exception. “That’s something Germany too has to take responsibility for,” he told the publication.
Until now, German industry, with its considerable dependence on China, has remained virtually silent on the geopolitical tensions between China and the West. That’s unsurprising since speaking up exposes companies to the risk of retaliation from China. However, businesses also operate on the basis of rules, and those rules are indeed being eroded. The Baden-Württemberg’s deployment is not just a journey: it’s an illustration that Germany is adapting to a fast-changing world.
Elisabeth Braw is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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