An international tribunal in The Hague on Tuesday unequivocally rejected China’s claims on the disputed waters of the South China Sea, thus setting off a potentially unsettling period in global affairs.
The outright rejection of the verdict by China, which maintained at the highest levels that the tribunal was five-judge court was one-sided and biased, can sooner or later lead to a test of wills between an increasingly assertive China and the rest of the world.
Without the US standing by its friends it will be hard for the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Brunei, etc., to stop a bullying giant on their doorsteps from troubling all other nations. China had taken to most aggressively lay claim to disputed waters of the South China Sea in recent years, claiming that for nearly 2,000 years it had enjoyed exclusive rights over them. It lay claim to some 90 percent or 3.5 million square kilometers of maritime areas.
In 2012 it seized the disputed Scarborough Shoal and has since built a military base there, reclaiming land from the sea. Further, it lays claim to small islands which are better described as rocks which surface during periods of low tide and is engaged in building military establishments on them.
In one word, China’s hegemonic ambitions powered by its growing militaristic prowess have made it ride rough shod over the international law of seas as also the legitimate claims of other nations in the region, including Japan and Vietnam. Control of the South China Sea does not just concern the disputant nations alone, but is vital for the well-being of the wider region.
The Philippines might have taken China to The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration but $ 4.5 trillion in trade passes through its waters annually. The vital sea lanes serve as the shortest link between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Although large areas of the sea are neutral international waters, the Philippines lays claim to a much smaller area over which it insists it has exclusive fishing and energy exploitation rights. The South China Sea is said to have huge reserves of oil and gas reserves. Besides, the rich marine life too lends itself for exploitation.
Following attacks on its fishing vessels, and threats of use of force against vessels flying its flag, the Philippines appealed to the UN court. A five-judge bench drawn from various countries, including Japan, rejected China’s claim over the Spratly Islands. In fact, it the so-called nine-dash line which China claimed historically backed its claim over some 90 percent of the waters found no basis under the international law of the seas.
Under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, which underpinned Tuesday’s verdict, it was the Philippines which actually enjoyed sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone which the Chinese had violated, the judgement said. The order not only benefits the Philippines but bolsters the case of other States with whom China is engaged in maritime disputes, including Vietnam and Japan.
However, the question that is of utmost significance is as to what the world at large can do to make China see reason after it has so contemptuously rejected the judgement. It is a challenge, above all, for the US. As a guarantor of peace to the smaller nations in the region, it cannot merely afford to look the other way. Though sometime ago the US has flown its fighter jets over the disputed waters and sent its ships close to the Spratly Islands, causing Beijing to dub them as provocative actions, following the tribunal’s order it remains to be seen what it does to free the international waters from the control of the Chinese.
The Chinese leadership, having whipped up a nationalistic frenzy over the issue, cannot now be seen to be yielding to the demands of an orderly international order without losing face. However, that is a dilemma of its own creation. But there would potentially be a greater threat to world peace were China to refuse to vacate its illegal occupation of the Spratly Islands and were it to persist with its efforts to reclaim more land in the international waters to build military bases.
Even an America which is increasingly reluctant to play its historic role as a guarantor of peace for its allies has to recognise that the force of international opinion, the veritable moral force, is with it when it seeks to enforce the UN-body’s unanimous verdict. It is in China’s own interest not to have the entire free world pooh-poohing it and thus risk complete isolation. India, meanwhile, has done well to ask China to respect the verdict. India cannot, and should not, forget the Chinese perfidies.
