China's SCS Strategy Thread

[Blackstone]

The International Tribunal in The Hague "ordered" China to defend its 9-dash line (a.k.a Cow Tongue) territorial claim in the SCS. I'm not entirely clear how the Tribunal could insist on actions from defendant parties when the enumerated rules say nations could opt out of such legal proceedings. Can anyone shed some light on the matter?

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Hague court orders China to answer ‘nine-dash line’ claim in dispute with Philippines.

Beijing given until December 15 to defend its claims in the South China Sea that overlap with Philippines and its neighbours.

China has been asked by an international tribunal to defend its territorial claims in the South China Sea by submitting written arguments within six months – despite Beijing’s refusal to meet the legal challenge by the Philippines.

China has refused to join the arbitration process initiated last year by the Philippine government before the The Hague tribunal.

Philippine officials today reiterated a call to China to join the arbitration as a peaceful and durable solution to resolve the long-raging territorial disputes.

The tribunal yesterday gave China until December 15 to submit arguments and evidence against the Philippine complaint, which questions the validity of China’s so-called vast “nine-dash line", which refers to a rough Chinese demarcation of its territorial claims that cover virtually the entire strategic waters.

In March, the Philippines filed another plea before a Hamburg, Germany-based UN tribunal, asking it to declare China’s claims as illegal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea – of which Manila and Beijing are both signatories.

The Philippines contends that China’s claim over the strategic waters – believed to harbour vast oil and gas reserves – violate international law and overlap the territories of the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan.


“It is about defending what is legitimately ours,” Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said.

“It is about securing our children’s future. It is about guaranteeing freedom of navigation for all nations,” he said at the time of the filing.

China has also refused to take part in the Hamburg arbitration, before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, and warned that bilateral relations would suffer if the Philippines pursued the appeal.

“The case could further heighten tensions and prompt China to move to shoals claimed by the Philippines,” said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform in Manila, at the time of the filing.

“Other claimants such as Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia are watching how this case will play out,” he said.

Manila has argued that China’s claims cover areas as far as 1,611 kilometres from the nearest Chinese coast and interfere with the Philippines’ exercising of its rights to its continental shelf.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

 

[PanAsian]

Just wanted to point out something appears to be wrong with the quoting function on posts #492 through 496 where someone other than the actual poster is quoted as such.

 

[PanAsian]

Japan is already stronger than Russia, and if China could "dominate" Japan, then Russia would be a junior partner to China.

Japan is already stronger than Russia? Not militarily.

 

[Jeff Head]

Just wanted to point out something appears to be wrong with the quoting function on posts #492 through 496 where someone other than the actual poster is quoted as such.

It actually started in 488 and was propogated from there. All fixed now.

 

[Blackstone]

Japan is already stronger than Russia? Not militarily.

Military conflicts (without nuclear arms) in the ECS would involve mainly naval, air, space, and cyber assets, and Japan is more capable than Russia in terms of quality, quantity, and C4ISR. So yes, Japan is militarily stronger than Russia in the ECS area.

 

[joshuatree]

The International Tribunal in The Hague "ordered" China to defend its 9-dash line (a.k.a Cow Tongue) territorial claim in the SCS. I'm not entirely clear how the Tribunal could insist on actions from defendant parties when the enumerated rules say nations could opt out of such legal proceedings. Can anyone shed some light on the matter?

The rules in UNCLOS can be a bunch of chutes and ladders. Check this out.

Article 298

1. When signing, ratifying or acceding to this Convention or at any time thereafter, a State may, without prejudice to the obligations arising under section 1, declare in writing that it does not accept any one or more of the procedures provided for in section 2 with respect to one or more of the following categories of disputes:

(a) (i) disputes concerning the interpretation or application of articles 15, 74 and 83 relating to sea boundary delimitations, or those involving historic bays or titles, provided that a State having made such a declaration shall, when such a dispute arises subsequent to the entry into force of this Convention and where no agreement within a reasonable period of time is reached in negotiations between the parties, at the request of any party to the dispute, accept submission of the matter to conciliation under Annex V, section 2; and provided further that any dispute that necessarily involves the concurrent consideration of any unsettled dispute concerning sovereignty or other rights over continental or insular land territory shall be excluded from such submission;

(ii) after the conciliation commission has presented its report, which shall state the reasons on which it is based, the parties shall negotiate an agreement on the basis of that report; if these negotiations do not result in an agreement, the parties shall, by mutual consent, submit the question to one of the procedures provided for in section 2, unless the parties otherwise agree;

(iii) this subparagraph does not apply to any sea boundary dispute finally settled by an arrangement between the parties, or to any such dispute which is to be settled in accordance with a bilateral or multilateral agreement binding upon those parties;

Article 15. Delimitation of the territorial sea between States with opposite or adjacent coasts

Article 74. Delimitation of the exclusive economic zone between States with opposite or adjacent coasts

Article 83. Delimitation of the continental shelf between States with opposite or adjacent coasts

This gives me the impression of right to opt out, especially with concerns to sovereignty. Again, a lot of folks are misled believing UNCLOS will solve sovereignty disputes.

"provided further that any dispute that necessarily involves the concurrent consideration of any unsettled dispute concerning sovereignty or other rights over continental or insular land territory shall be excluded from such submission"



Yet in the same Article 298, another line reads.

4. If one of the States Parties has made a declaration under paragraph 1(a), any other State Party may submit any dispute falling within an excepted category against the declarant party to the procedure specified in such declaration.

So the Philippines can bring this case up but that sounds like that's it. China did make a declaration under 1(a) to opt out so it's opted out. A kangaroo court is what this is starting to sound like.

 

[Jeff Head]

All of the politics and other issues aside...and we really need to keep away from that...there have been warnings, recenly, about this thread not being about various other topics. Anyhow, all of that aside. The PRC is using the its own actions (like with the Reclamation...the drilling...exercises with the PLAN...etc.) to illustrate what its strategies in the SCS are.

To whit, last weeks amphibious exercises:

​

 

[Blackstone]

All of the politics and other issues aside...and we really need to keep away from that...there have been warnings, recenly, about this thread not being about various other topics. Anyhow, all of that aside. The PRC is using the its own actions (like with the Reclamation...the drilling...exercises with the PLAN...etc.) to illustrate what its strategies in the SCS are.

To whit, last weeks amphibious exercises:

It looks like China's SCS policy is something like "we don't want trouble, but if we find them, then we'll use our economic, military, and political might to create a new status quo that is less to your liking than if you had just left things alone." I think we see that playing out in SCS and ECS right now. The oil rig, overflights, White Hulls, and amphibious/naval exercises are sauce for the goose.

 

[A.Man]

China Refuses to Defend its South China Sea Claims to UN Court

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China refused to defend its territorial claims in the South China Sea to a United Nations tribunal because it doesn’t recognize international arbitration of its dispute with the Philippines.

“China’s position that it will not accept or participate in the tribunal case involving the Philippines hasn’t changed,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing today.

The UN’s Permanent Court of Arbitration announced yesterday it was giving China until Dec. 15 to respond to the complaint by the Philippines filed in March, when it asked the court to uphold its right to exploit waters within its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone. So far China has refused any international efforts to resolve the dispute, insisting any discussions on the issue must be held directly between China and the Philippines.

Under President Xi Jinping, China has been tapping its economic and military muscle to assert its claims to surrounding waters that may be rich in mineral and energy deposits. China claims much of the South China Sea under its “nine dash-line” map, first published in 1947, which extends hundreds of miles south from China’s Hainan Island to equatorial waters off the coast of Borneo, taking in some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Hagel Rebuked

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said China’s action in the South China Sea risked destabilizing the region and that the “U.S. will not look the other way when fundamental principles of international order are being challenged.”

Hagel made the remarks on May 31 at a gathering of defense officials in Singapore, where he drew a rebuke from Lieutenant General Wang Guanzhong, deputy chief of general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, who said Hagel’s criticism was “groundless.”

The U.S. is treaty-bound to defend the Philippines and Japan, involved in a separate dispute with China in the East China Sea, in case of any conflict.

The Philippines and China have had regular dust-ups in the area. On May 7, Philippine police fired warning shots before arresting a boatload of Chinese fisherman near the Spratly Islands, known as Nansha in Chinese, for violating their sovereignty and catching endangered sea turtles. Chinese ships used water cannons in January to drive Filipino fishermen away from the Scarborough Shoal, the Philippine military said on Feb. 24. China warned off two Philippine boats near the Second Thomas Shoal, its Foreign Ministry said on March 10.

Vietnam Spat

Vietnam is preparing legal action against China in a separate dispute over a different area of the South China Sea after China set up an oil rig near the contested Paracel Islands, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in a May 30 interview. The placing of the rig set off anti-Chinese protests in Vietnam last month that left at least three dead.

In the East China Sea, Chinese and Japanese coast guard boats regularly tail each other around a chain of islands disputed by the two countries. Two Chinese fighter jets came within tens of meters of two Japanese surveillance planes near the islands last month, a move that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called “dangerous.”

Speaking at the same international conference as Hagel last week, Abe said that countries shouldn’t try to change the status quo by force and that Japan would make every effort to help Southeast Asian nations secure their seas and airspace.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Aipeng Soo in Beijing at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at [email protected] Andrew Davis, Neil Western

 

[Blackstone]

China Refuses to Defend its South China Sea Claims to UN Court

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Speaking at the same international conference as Hagel last week, Abe said that countries shouldn’t try to change the status quo by force and that Japan would make every effort to help Southeast Asian nations secure their seas and airspace.

So what exactly does Shinzo Abe mean when he says Japan would "make every effort" to assist SE Asian countries against China? Does "every effort" include sending the Japanese Maritime "Self-Defense" Force assets to attack Chinese ships and planes in the South China Sea? Will Mr. Abe draw red lines in the SCS?