A Chinese naval fleet conducts an exercise of inspecting suspect ships in the South Pacific, Sept. 18, 2013. A naval fleet of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) on Wednesday exercised rummage capture after finishing its visit to Hawaii. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCOLOS), a warship which encounters on the high seas a foreign ship, other than a ship entitled to complete immunity, the warship may proceed to verify the ship's right to fly its flag. To the end, it may send a boat to check the suspect ship if there is reasonable ground for suspecting that the ship is engaged in piracy and so on. (Xinhua/Zha Chunming) |