Establishing maritime guardrails in the Indo-Pacific: Mutual cooperation – Wed, May 24 2023

Reflected in the increase of world trade volume by sea, the Sea Lanes of Trade (SLOT) in the Pacific and Indian Ocean have become more crowded in recent decades, along with the increasing pace of economic growth in Asia.

Besides the density of the SLOT at the sea surface, undersea cables are also increasingly being laid on the seabed as the backbone of world communications.

However, the SLOT is facing disturbance from traditional and non-traditional threats, ranging from misperceptions between countries and transnational organized crimes, to pollution and environmental degradation. Transnational organized crimes have harnessed technological advances, resulting in the growing trend of various criminal acts with crime patterns that law enforcers find it more difficult to detect.