Flag of Convenience, Offshore Capital Centre and 21st Century Maritime Capitalism

Principle Investigator：Joyce C.H. Liu

This project initiates to explore the capital power and expansion of the occupied territories in the Asian ocean. What is called “the Asian Mediterranean” is not only the Sinocentric tribute and trade channel at sea, it is also the logistic route of maritime slavery, and the choke point of the military dispositions. Such prevalence of 21st Century Maritime Capitalism  has transformed the traditional system of human and material resources into the modern logistic system of illegal space. Flag of Convenience (FOC) is only a representative symptom of such a space of illegality, and is connected to a whole set of logistic operation: buying and selling law for unrestricted expansion of free ocean, setting up offshore ports and capital centers, special economic zones and export ports that are beyond restrictions from maritime conventions or national laws.