Muddied waters: Freedom-of-navigation operations as signals in the South China Sea
| Published date | 01 February 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241257807 |
| Author | Hyun-Binn Cho,Brian C Chao |
| Date | 01 February 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241257807
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2025, Vol. 27(1) 154 –178
© The Author(s) 2024
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481241257807
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Muddied waters: Freedom-of-
navigation operations as signals
in the South China Sea
Hyun-Binn Cho1 and Brian C Chao2,3
Abstract
Freedom-of-navigation operations (FONOPs) led by the United States have become a prominent
policy tool in the South China Sea. These operations, however, have caused much confusion and
consternation in the region despite the limited legal purpose that they officially serve. Why? This
article departs from existing research by examining FONOPs as a form of signalling. Utilising an
original dataset on US FONOPs in the South China Sea, we explain why and how FONOPs are
ambiguous signals. Because of the nature of FONOPs using warships, the complexities in the
maritime environment, and the irregularity of FONOPs, serious sender–receiver gaps emerge
in the South China Sea regarding whether FONOPs signal resolve, coercive intent, and/or
intentions to check certain states’ broader ambitions. Our analysis reveals that some signalling
interpretations of FONOPs in the region are more plausible than others, thus helping to reduce
the signalling ambiguity of these operations.
Keywords
coercive diplomacy, freedom-of-navigation operations, Indo-Pacific, maritime security, signalling,
South China Sea
Introduction
On 26 October 2015, the United States Ship (USS) Lassen made headlines around the
world by conducting a freedom-of-navigation operation (FONOP) in the South China
Sea. The purpose of FONOPs is to uphold the legal principle of freedom of navigation by
sailing ships through waters where other states have made restrictive claims. The US war-
ship appeared to challenge China’s claims surrounding the artificial islands it had been
building in the South China Sea, but soon after the operation was conducted, experts
began to question what exactly had happened, whom and what Washington was challeng-
ing, and whether the operation had inadvertently endorsed China’s claims (Klein and
1Department of Political Science, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ, USA
2National Security Affairs Department, US Naval War College, Newport, RI, USA
3Center for the Study of Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Corresponding author:
Hyun-Binn Cho, Department of Political Science, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ 08628, USA.
Email: choh@tcnj.edu
1257807BPI0010.1177/13691481241257807The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsCho and Chao
research-article2024
Special Issue Article
Cho and Chao 155
Rapp-Hooper, 2015; LaGrone, 2015; Panda, 2015). Such confusion was due in part to US
behaviour (Cavas, 2015), but in important respects due also to the characteristics of
FONOPs themselves, coupled with the maritime environment in which they were con-
ducted. That the South China Sea is an arena of great-power rivalry only muddied the
waters further. Yet the controversy surrounding the USS Lassen in 2015 was symptomatic
of a broader concern: despite their official purpose as a legal tool, FONOPs are prone to
have broader political consequences.
This article contributes to this special issue on foreign-policy signalling in the
Indo-Pacific by examining FONOPs as a form of signalling. For the past decade,
FONOPs led by the United States and its allies have become a prominent feature in
the region, particularly in the South China Sea. These operations, however, have
caused much confusion and consternation. China, for one, denounces them as provo-
cations, and other regional states display mixed responses. FONOPs deserve atten-
tion as a signalling device not only because of their increasing political visibility in
the South China Sea, but because they are a form of maritime signalling. There is a
relative dearth of research on the distinct opportunities and challenges to signalling
at sea, even though many challenges to security in the Indo-Pacific involve the mari-
time domain, such as disputes in the South China Sea, tensions in the Taiwan Strait,
and frictions over the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Diaoyutai Islands in the East China Sea.
Maritime signalling can differ in important respects from signalling on land due to
several factors, including the relative ease with which military assets can be deployed
rapidly over long distances, the gradations of sovereignty at sea that do not exist on
land, and the remoteness of the sea from human settlements that can lower the bar to
using military violence (Chao and Cho, 2023). These differences behove scholars
and practitioners to pay closer attention to maritime signalling when examining the
Indo-Pacific.
Moreover, unlike many types of maritime signalling, such as the deployment of air-
craft carriers, naval blockades, or submarine port calls, FONOPs’ official purpose is to
serve as a legal tool. That is, FONOPs are distinctive as maritime signals because they
are meant to exercise a right rather than demonstrate military might – the very act of
sailing ships can prevent the formation of restrictive international customary law. Yet
because FONOPs involve sailing warships, they can send unofficial or unintended sig-
nals beyond their purportedly limited objective. Thus, the distinctive nature of FONOPs
as an official legal tool with wider political ramifications warrants an examination of
their role as signals separate from even other maritime signals. Existing studies, how-
ever, have yet to explore FONOPs as a form of signalling at all. How do FONOPs fit
with prior research on signalling, and how can analysing them as signals help us better
understand their political consequences?
Expanding on the signalling and coercive diplomacy literatures in International
Relations (IR), and adopting this special issue’s broader foreign-policy signalling frame-
work (Plagemann, 2025), we argue that FONOPs are ambiguous signals. Moreover, we
explain why and how FONOPs are ambiguous signals. We identify three central reasons
for the ambiguity. First, ambiguity arises from the characteristics of FONOPs themselves.
Upholding the legal rights of freedom of navigation requires sailing warships because
these rights involve the transiting of warships in foreign states’ territorial seas, but the
sailing of warships is both costly for the sender (Fearon, 1997) and costly for the target to
endure, so FONOPs may signal resolve and intentions to coerce beyond their official
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