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South China Sea Arbitration News & Discussion

Neither is it China's.

But it is hilarious that you said that considering China claiming the entirety of the SCS as her own, implying that passage thru the SCS belongs the exclusive right of China and that international shipping thru the SCS would be at China's generosity.


Shoo...Go back to wherever sandbox you came from, kid.
He imply China never impeach the passage of commercial ship through the SCS but China national security must not cede any maritime territories to any claimant ally of the US with US naval based in their country that involve in the territory dispute with China. They all have to declare war on China over SCS maritime territory.
 
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It does not matter.

If I claim the sidewalk in front of your house, are you going to sit still ? Would it matter if I tell you that I have never block your passage to the road ?

Do you think we give a shit if China ignores the PCA's ruling ? No, we do not. But what the ruling mean is we think China's claim to the entirety of the SCS is not worth even a square of toilet paper.

Here is the deal...

China can ignore the PCA's ruling and begins belligerency. China can say that any ship that does not comply with China's orders can be boarded, cargo confiscated, and crew imprisoned. Will there be ships that will comply with China's demands ? Of course there will be. But what could happen -- or WILL happen -- is that powerful navies like the US or JPN will offer to escort ships thru the SCS. What can China do ? Not an effing goddamn thing, pal. :enjoy:
One country if they do not value his history, then they will lose, I think Americal do not understand it, as you have no history...

You must understand when we state SCS is ours, nobody say No against that!!
When we set the official system in SCS, USA is not in this world! you are British.
When the WAR 2 finished, nobody say No SCS against it!!

Now we found the oil etc, you jump out!! Are you think all the world is foolish?

The case what you do is Robber's action, Nowwardays is not USA'S world!! You have no right to say anything against Asia
 
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I want to remind you that the international water is free for all countries, big and small, regardless of their political background, to operate and go to and not an exclusive rights of your US and their allies.

I want to remind You that
  • Water is wet.
  • Ice is cold.
  • The sun is hot.
if you need more obvious statements, feel free to ask...
 
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When China lost the control of the SCS then the real danger of foreign invader will occupy mainland China, 1st fight over maritime security to prevent fighting a war on land.

Over Chinese dead body before China honor the verdict.
 
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Beijing’s South China Sea anger belies dilemma — experts
By AFP - Jul 13,2016 - Last updated at Jul 13,2016

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In this March 29, 2014, file photo, a Chinese Coast Guard ship attempts to block a Philippine government vessel as the latter tries to enter Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea to relieve Philippine troops and resupply provisions (AP photo)

BEIJING — An international tribunal ruling against Beijing’s extensive claims in the South China Sea is the Asian giant’s biggest diplomatic setback in years, leaving it facing a difficult choice between pragmatism and nationalism, analysts say.

Beijing has unleashed a deluge of vitriol against the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, but at the same time the permanent UN Security Council member is trying to position itself as a key player in the global community.

Beijing’s claims to almost the whole of the strategically vital South China Sea are embodied in a nine-dash line dating from 1940s maps, and it has built up a series of artificial islands capable of supporting military operations.

But when the Philippines, a rival claimant, asked the UN-backed tribunal to rule on 15 issues relating to the dispute, it ruled there was no legal foundation for China’s ambitions to control the area’s bounty.

The announcement unleashed a flood of condemnation from the Chinese government and state media, which for months had been preparing for an unfavourable outcome with attacks on the tribunal’s integrity, calling the group everything from a “fraud” to a “mutant”.

Angry Chinese citizens vented their spleen online but authorities reportedly censored the most aggressive comments, and imposed tight security around the Philippine embassy amid fears of protests.

Beijing reiterated its right to declare an air defence identification zone in the area Wednesday, but did not explicitly threaten action in the water.

Its wrath was undercut by the fact that by boycotting the proceedings, insisting that the tribunal had no jurisdiction, Beijing had repeatedly rejected the opportunity to defend its position, analysts said.

Yanmei Xie, a China analyst for the International Crisis Group, said its ambitions for a bigger place on the global diplomatic stage put it in a quandary.

“China is at a point where it wants to participate more in the shaping of international institutions and in some cases has taken up a role as a leader,” she told AFP.

Last year China set up a new multilateral lender, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, in September it will host the annual G-20 summit, and it contributes more blue helmets to UN peacekeeping missions than any other country in the world.

But its hard won credibility could be at stake if it is seen as setting itself “against international law and international institutions” or “cherry picking” rules for its own convenience, she said.

True test

China’s ruling Communist Party has long used nationalism to bolster its legitimacy, but the rhetoric has escalated under President Xi Jinping, who has responded to weakened economic growth with calls to resist the kind of pernicious Western influences that led to the country’s exploitation and weakness in the 19th century.

At the same time it has also asserted its territorial claims more aggressively, with Xi regularly exhorting the military to improve its ability to win battles.

“This really will be the first true test of Xi Jinping’s leadership because he’s ridden the tiger of nationalist sentiment and wrapped himself in the flag I think very successfully,” said Euan Graham, of Australia’s Lowy Institute think tank.

But at the same time, “China does take its membership of the United Nations and the Security Council very seriously,” he said, adding “it’s not easy to reject an approved tribunal that is drawing on a United Nations treaty”.

Jay Batongbacal, a maritime affairs expert at the University of the Philippines, said the judgement was “a foreign policy disaster for the Party”.

“It’s going to take a lot of great statesmanship to move China from its very hardline public position without looking like it’s conceding,” he told AFP.

Although China’s foreign ministry issued a hardline response to the ruling, full of denunciations, it also offered an olive branch. The country is “ready to make every effort with the states directly concerned to enter into provisional arrangements of a practical nature”, it said at the end of a lengthy statement reasserting its claims of sovereignty.

Beijing has warned that it will meet force with force if necessary, but Hu Xingdou, a foreign policy expert at Beijing University of Technology, said a military reaction to the ruling was unlikely.

“It would lead to the interruption of China’s modernisation and lead China to become more and more closed,” he said.

Ultimately, he said, China’s response “must not be too exaggerated, and must not be too outraged”.
 
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Scorched earth ruling on S China Sea
BY PETER LEE on JULY 14, 2016 in ASIA TIMES NEWS & FEATURES, CHINA, SOUTHEAST ASIA

The sweeping judgement by the Permanent Arbitration Court in Hague on July 12 has dashed China’s South China Sea claims and left a completely open field for the Philippines and others. It is an important step in efforts to cripple China as a positive and significant economic force. On the other hand, the white paper that China issued soon after the ruling is a signal to neighbors that it is ready to move beyond the nine-dash line to strike a deal with them through bilateral talks.

As we say in America, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) got utterly waxed by the UNCLOS Arbitral Tribunal award in Philippines v. China. “Waxed” as in “knocked prone, utterly flattened, finished off, now part of the floor, incapable of offering resistance, not a factor.”



China says its construction in South China Sea is to help maritime search and rescue, disaster relief, environmental protection and navigational security

In fact, as observers noted, the commission went above and beyond the call of duty and the scope of the Philippine pleading to assert that there were absolute zero features in the Spratly Islands—the cluster of reefs, atolls, and whatnot off the Philippines that China calls the “Nansha Islands”—that merited classification as anything more than a rock.

Even Itu Aba Island a.k.a. Taiping Island, Taiwan’s flagship holding in the Spratlys, was denied island status, despite holding a 600-person garrison sustained by four wells reputedly capable of pumping out 65 tons of water a day and certainly making a plausible case that it could “sustain economic life.”

No “island” status means no 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone for the “feature” regardless of who controls it.

And that means that for the Philippines, there are no overlapping/conflicting EEZ claims standing in the way of its immediate assertion of its unambiguous and uncontestable EEZ extending into the South China Sea from its archipelagic baseline and covering much of the Spratlys.

That, I suspect, was the point of the commission award.

Cognizant of the fact that the PRC had boycotted the proceedings, aware that the PRC had publicly, repeatedly, and vociferously stated its intention to disregard the ruling, perhaps unofficially contacted by the PRC to receive a heavy-handed threat that an adverse ruling might trigger a PRC withdrawal from UNCLOS and a collapse of the treaty, chafing under PRC accusations of illegitimacy and bias…

…perhaps acting on the assumption that any other arbitration proceedings by other claimants subsequent to the Philippine case would be nothing more than occasions for futile delay and indeed simply provide the PRC more time to consolidate its illegal position in the South China Sea and flout the rights of the claimants…

…maybe the commission decided to make a clean sweep of the PRC case and leave a completely open field for the Philippines and, indeed, everyone else.

China problem solved, in other words, forever. With the nine-dash-line invalidated and the Spratlys out of the picture, the PRC maritime rights in the South China Sea are cut back to a little nubbin between the Vietnamese and Philippine EEZs plus the twelve-mile limits around the various rocks it occupies.

Call it a scorched earth ruling on the South China Sea. And an unpleasant surprise, it appears, for the PRC.

Immediately subsequent to the ruling, the State Council disgorged a lengthy, detailed white paperthat appeared to abandon the nine-dash-line principle with a claim based on PRC sovereignty over the Spratlys as an archipelagic cluster, in other words, a big fat wad of territory in the South China Sea that would merit an archipelagic baseline circumscribing the area as a whole and a big, fat unitary EEZ impinging on the Philippine EEZ.

It now looks like a non-starter.

With the Spratlys deemed underserving of anything more than “rock” status, it seems the “archipelago” dreams are in the rubbish. It should also be noted that it would be extremely unlikely that UNCLOS would have granted archipelagic status (reserved for dense, populated island groups like the Philippines) to the Spratlys.

But maybe the PRC strategy was to introduce another point of plausible dispute and litigation and string this thing out until everybody yielded to Chinese intransigence and cut a deal.

Well, that’s not happening. And maybe pre-empting Chinese delay and obfuscation was the commission’s intention.

Judging by the regional reaction—“Ooooh!”—I think the other South China Sea claimants were equally surprised and perhaps also somewhat taken aback by the scope of the arbitration award.

For President Duterte in the Philippines, the award is something of a poisoned chalice. With the Philippine EEZ issue settled, he has little leeway to trade concessions with the PRC without receiving criticism and worse from his critics. Even when it looked like the arbitral award might leave some room for horse-trading, Philippine legal eagles were already threatening impeachment if Duterte compromised the Philippines’ sovereign rights by cutting deals with China.

Instead, the logic of the UNCLOS ruling would dictate that the Philippines demand that the PRC vacate two elements in its “Great Wall of Sand”, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef, since they are artificial islands inside the Philippine EEZ built on top of below-water features, and enjoy no legal sovereign status as islands, rocks, or whatnot.

If Duterte sends out a military force to evict the PRC and the PRC resists, then we’re skating close enough to invoking the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty (which is supposed to cover situations when Philippine forces “come under attack” outside of Philippine territory but not offensive operations) to make pivoteers’ hearts go pitty-pat.

The flip side is that pushing the Philippines EEZ rights also raises the specter of PRC “price tag” economic retaliation, something that also thrills pivoteers since it reinforces the polarization narrative at the heart of the strategy, but increases the economic costs to the Philippines and creates an additional nexus of crisis for Duterte in PRC relations, an area he was hoping to pick up a political win with a more conciliatory approach.

The same equation applies to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, I believe: the window of opportunity for win-win dickering is closing as the need to claim the legal gains offered by the UNCLOS ruling becomes more pressing.

Big winners in the UNCLOS affair are the PRC’s zero-sum competitors, Japan and the United States. The door is open for America’s friends and allies to pursue more aggressive policies in the South China Sea, and the United States gets to play the “international outlaw” card on China or, as Quartz usefully framed it, China has no respect for international law, its neighbors, or marine life, tribunal rules.

More grist for the mill that the United States is fighting “revisionist authoritarianism” i.e. China on behalf of the “international liberal order” and not just engaged in great power jostling in the South China Sea.

As for the PRC, in my opinion it hopes to continue doing what it’s been doing, skulking around the South China Sea with its fishing fleets and coast guard vessels, alternately harassing and compromising with its neighbors, trying to keep the conflict levels low enough to avoid military clashes and prevent its presence from escalating into a genuine security issue justifying the military intervention of the United States.

As you might gather, I am not an adherent to the “South China Sea” = “China’s Sudetenland”–or “China’s Sudetenzee” for you German speakers—i.e. a springboard for aggression and conquest. The PRC, in my opinion, hoped to leverage its South China Sea claims in order to wean the Philippines from the United States and Finlandize Vietnam in order to strengthen a ring of sympathetic states around the South China Sea.

This sort of vassalage is anathema to the US and China-hawk and pro-US elements in South East Asia, and the UNCLOS ruling is an important step in efforts to cripple the PRC as a positive and significant economic force—and supplier of attractive economic-friendly “security goods” like lighthouses, coast guard fleets, and so on—in the South China Sea.

The PRC had been quietly backing away from the nine-dash-line embarrassment for several years and hinting it would resolve its conflicts with other South China Sea claimants through various bilateral agreements that did not invoke acceptance of the nine-dash line as a precondition for talks.

The State Council white paper (it doesn’t get any higher than the State Council, folks, at least in non-Party settings), with its lengthy, “UNCLOSian” parsing of the PRC Spratly claims, implies that the PRC had been reaching out to the various claimants on non-nine-dash-line basis for some time.

Probably, the PRC’s de facto abandonment of the nine-dash-line was part of the package it offered to various claimant governments in the last few months in return for an undertaking not to publicly gang up on China once the ruling came down.

The White Paper’s release on the day after the Hague decision is a signal to its neighbors that the PRC is ready to move beyond the nine-dash line, it’s ready to deal…and it’s not leaving the South China Sea.

Hanging around there, however, just got considerably more difficult and expensive.

Peter Lee runs the China Matters blog. He writes on the intersection of US policy with Asian and world affairs.

(Copyright 2016 Asia Times Holdings Limited, a duly registered Hong Kong company. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
 
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based on unclos annex VII Article 2

A list of arbitrators shall be drawn up and maintained by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

does any of the 5 arbitrators from this list? does the secretary _general even know about it?

I just question about the reliability of the 5 arbitrators

talking about legally. the arbitrators themselves must have legally right.

A list of arbitrators shall be drawn up and maintained by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

DO the 5 arbitrator really have the right identity? can you answer me???


that is one main problem.
the identity and reliability of the 5 arbitrator are now questioned in china.

Hi friend, thanks for tagging me. The answer is yes, the 5 arbitrators is in fact on that official list. They are:

-Rudiger Wolfrum, nominated on that official list by Mongolia.
-Jean-Pierre Cot, also nominated on that list by Mongolia.
-Stanislaw Pawlak, nominated by Poland.
-Alfred Soons, nominated by the Netherlands.
-Tom Mensah, nominated by Ghana.

Here is the link to the official list from the UN website. You can confirm them on the list yourself (its near the bottom of the page):

https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewD...XXI-6&chapter=21&Temp=mtdsg3&clang=_en#bottom

As per the stipulations under Annex VII. The Philippines gets to choose an arbitrator of its choice so it chose Wolfrum. China also gets to choose one but since it did not participate, the president of ITLOS chose one on China’s behalf as instructed by annex VII - Cot was chosen fro China. Since both dispute parties could not reach an agreement to appoint the other 3 arbitrators, the prez of ITLOS once again appointed the other 3 as instructed by annex VII. The prez of ITLOS during that time happens to be Shunji Yanai, a Japanese.

So to answer your question again: Yes, the 5 arbitrators are indeed legitimate people belonging to the official UN list. And yes, their appointment was legal and in compliance with annex VII.
 
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It does not matter.

If I claim the sidewalk in front of your house, are you going to sit still ? Would it matter if I tell you that I have never block your passage to the road ?

Do you think we give a shit if China ignores the PCA's ruling ? No, we do not. But what the ruling mean is we think China's claim to the entirety of the SCS is not worth even a square of toilet paper.

Here is the deal...

China can ignore the PCA's ruling and begins belligerency. China can say that any ship that does not comply with China's orders can be boarded, cargo confiscated, and crew imprisoned. Will there be ships that will comply with China's demands ? Of course there will be. But what could happen -- or WILL happen -- is that powerful navies like the US or JPN will offer to escort ships thru the SCS. What can China do ? Not an effing goddamn thing, pal. :enjoy:
I think Chinese experts have stated our attitude for a very long time, we won't fire the first bullet, but we'll ensure the enemy won't be able to fire the second one. As long as no one fires bullets, no one can stop us from doing anything then. We will continue to build up more artificial island and deploy more missiles and aircrafts dispite the arbitration, the only way to stop that is to attack, which means to start a war, otherwise nothing really matters. USN or any other navy can still cruise in this area for sure, we never meant to block you away. But it's like that you are hanging out there and there's always a gun pointing at you, not firing, but just pointing, so the question is, will you attack first? If not, you are just throughing fuel money to the water, but we can hold up the ground to develop tourism or explore resources and stuff, it's profitable for China.
 
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That's what happened here. China did indeed attach letters of reservation to UNCLOS, but the tribunal determined these exceptions don't apply since China bases its arguments upon "historic rights" rather than "historic title" - i.e., sovereignty.

Wht are you talking about? What happened to comprehensive reading?
 
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