Rising maritime threats test global trade lifeline

Maritime security is facing a rise in both traditional and nontraditional threats and has become a pressing global issue requiring negotiation, mutual respect and effective mechanisms to safeguard shipping — the lifeline of the global economy and stability, experts said.

Participants from around the world reached that consensus on Thursday at a forum hosted by Shanghai Maritime University focusing on maritime security and blue prosperity.

Zhang Feng, a professor and head of the School of Marxism at Shanghai Maritime University, said more than 80 percent of global trade and over 95 percent of China's foreign trade cargo — from what he described as the "workshop of the world" — is transported by sea. Disruptions to shipping operations would affect imports and exports, threatening the global economy and food and energy security, he said.

"Shipping connects the world and the future. It is the economic lifeline of the world," Zhang said. "As the world undergoes major changes unseen in a century, maritime security has become a key arena for competition among major powers. What has happened in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea highlights its critical importance."

Kazem Agamy, dean of the Arab Research Institute for Sustainable Blue Economy at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, cited an example to underscore maritime insecurity.

Two years ago, disruptions in the Red Sea forced major carriers to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, driving up freight costs. Supply chains linking Asia, Africa and Europe through the Suez Canal for more than a century were severed almost overnight. The canal, which carries about 12 percent of global trade and generates more than $10 billion annually at its peak, saw its revenue nearly halve.

"This episode revealed a critical truth," Agamy said. "While more than 80 percent of global trade moves by sea, the governance structures underpinning maritime security remain fragmented. Shipping lanes are global, but the mechanisms to protect them are not. This gap is the central challenge before us."

Norman Martinez Gutierrez, director of the International Maritime Law Institute of the International Maritime Organization, said maritime security is often associated with terrorism, piracy and armed robbery at sea, but its scope is broader. It also includes safe navigation, protection of maritime infrastructure, environmental safeguards and compliance with international legal standards.

"Without adequate maritime security, there can be no predictability in maritime transport, no stability in supply chains and no confidence in the legal rules that govern shipping," he said.

Mao Ruipeng, a researcher at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, highlighted China's role in contributing to global maritime security. He said China was among the first to sign the agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, known as the BBNJ Agreement.

"China is a staunch defender of the international maritime order," Mao said. "It has proposed and implemented the Global Governance Initiative, upheld multilateralism and safeguarded the maritime order based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea."