How China deals with the Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling will be telling
A great deal is at stake concerning the peaceful conduct of
international affairs in China’s dispute with the Philippines over
territory in the SouthChina Sea.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague last week ruled illegal China’s
claims to resources within its self-declared nine-dash line there, one of the
world’s busiest and most lucrative trading routes.
The Chinese government says the ruling is “null and void” and
has “no binding force”. It says the Philippines took the case unilaterally in
2013, after an incident in the Scarborough Shoal when the Chinese navy denied
access to Filipino fishermen.
China says the dispute concerns international law on territorial
sovereignty and maritime delimitation rather than fishing resources and that
the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), to which it and
the Philippines are signatories, does not apply. It calls for bilateral
negotiation instead.
The Philippine government disagrees and has support from other
countries bordering the sea and equally exposed to Chinese claims, including
Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan and Vietnam. China’s recent physical and
military buildup on the disputed Spratlys and Paracels islands in the oil and
gas rich sea, through which €3.5 trillion trade passes annually, together with
its historically based nine-dash line claiming rights there, is put at stake by
the ruling. The line was drawn up after Japan’s defeat in the second World War.
Whatever about the legal complexities involved, the diplomatic
and political implications of the ruling are plain to see. China has a choice
between multilateral engagement and international law or great power
assertiveness in dealing with its Asian neighbourhood.
Its southeast Asian neighbours very much want to see the first
approach prevail over Chinese nationalist claims to territory based on ancient
tributary relations.
The rest of the world has a deep and vested interest in this
choice because a failure to resolve it co-operatively would lead to a further
military build-up inescapably involving the US and other Asian powers.
What China’s actions in the South China Sea mean
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