Issue with the South China Sea and the tribunal ruling that is happening today.
So I found this “这才是中国，一点都不能少。[爱心]接力，转发！” on my wechat moments. (Chinese social media)
= This is China, even a little bit we won’t reduce, [compassion] relay, pass-forward!
With a picture of this.
Great! So this is actually how I found out that this tribunal was happening.
I heard ages ago that the Philippines had filed a formal complaint and filed for United Nations decision based on China’s breaking of International Law that is due to the breaking of the UNCLOS- United Nations Clauses for Laws of the Seas.
From a friend that works with the Chinese news:
“-I’m having a lot more work recently because of this South China Sea issue.
-Also because other countries are interfering
-When they have no reason to”
Now the ‘no reason’, is not something I can stand for, because while I’m fine if people want to remain ignorant and it doesn’t hurt anyone, I’m not fine when it inevitably ends up hurting someone as the world gradually becomes stupid.
However when it comes to making a decision which affect future freedoms for everyone…then that’s what I have a problem with. This is most notably the freedom of navigation, but also just on the fact that it’s been so long that China has been slowly pushing international rules, and that it’s been finding more and more that no one does anything, its getting bolder and bolder at just doing whatever it wants when it wants.
This is a subject and area that I’ve studied quite extensively when studying my Master’s degree in International Relations, for which I focused on China’s strategic interests, its long term strategy and how it is putting it into effect; and its strategic relationship with its immediate neighbours as well as interactions with the USA and the implications for Australia.
I would say that I know more than most when it comes to this subject and am quite fine to state my educated and researched opinion on this matter and provide some insight as to why …unfortunately it’s just another case where the Ch. Gov. is boisterously over-reaching without proper justification, something that again unfortunately this gov. does all to often.
It is important to understand the kind of language that the Ch. Gov uses, and you can read more of it here: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/992320.shtml
The Global Times is a mouth-piece of the Chinese gov. and is heavily nationalistic. It publishes in both Chinese and English and aims to persuade peoples opinion with the use of sophistry [presenting seemingly plausible arguments which may not be completely true or arguments very loosely based on truth, and full of misinformation, to present an argument that seems like it is the truth, yet it is not] much like most of you would know FOX news does in America.
The article linked above reads easily, however there are subtle propaganda points that are laid out that aims to convince the weak minded of a certain mindset.
For instance:
The South China Sea dispute has been greatly complicated after heavy US intervention. Now an international tribunal has also been included, posing more threat to the integrity of China’s maritime and territorial sovereignty.
Heavy intervention = mainly sending warships to insure freedom of movement in the South China Sea, which is not something that the Chinese Gov admits it is denying to other countries, nor tells its own people about.
More threat = the fact that many other countries claim fishing and other rights in the area, not just the US, and the fact that the China’s own claim comes mainly from some very old maps, nothing based on international law.
Regardless of the principle that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) shall not arbitrate on territorial disputes, the arbitration becomes nothing but a farce
True because China infers that they are talking about continental LAND disputes, however UNCLOS DOES have rights to decide upon sea territorial disputes because that is based upon land at sea.
As long as all parties are still reasonable, the situation in the South China Sea will be controllable.
It tries to infer that China’s actions HAVE been reasonable. Which they haven’t, because they’ve been building military bases on underwater reefs by dredging the sea around it to create artificial islands, and their declaration of a ADIZ (Air Defence Identification Zone) in the East China Sea and what they are likely to do for the South China Sea, means that ‘reasonable’ is not something that China has been adhering to itself.
So as I guess you can see, the subtle propaganda and sophistry that news sources representing the China gov’s opinions present is full of misinformation, and subtleties that can make lying seem legitimate.
Of course the strategy that china WANTS to employ is that if only the countries that have a stake in the matter are allowed to handle it… which of course not only includes Philippines, but Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia etc. 
China knows that it can take on all these countries one by one… and win. Only recently did it find a sort of international precedent in the Kunming meeting with ASEAN that if they went up against all the countries as a group… then they maybe couldn’t win and the international fallout against China would greatly endanger it’s international reputation.
Read it here: http://thediplomat.com/2016/06/what-really-happened-at-the-asean-china-special-kunming-meeting/
&
http://thediplomat.com/2016/06/china-not-asean-the-real-failure-at-south-china-sea-kunming-meeting/
However under international law, China doesn’t have much of a chance… because the United Nations Clauses for Laws of the Sea UNCLOS, of which I’m pretty sure China signed, states that the actual definition for ‘islands’ counts as only those that can sustain human life…for which none of those particular islands in the South China Sea do. This means that no matter how many old maps china pulls out of the woodwork, it will not change this fact.
They’ve used the word ‘interfere’ because it has a bad connotation (and this is exactly what the USA HAS actually done previously, so its easy to believe from other countries, and people that can’t be bothered reading too much about the issue, that this is exactly what the USA is doing now. However, what the USA and now France is doing is not interfering because they should have rite of passage in these waters.
– The fact that china claimed an Air Defence Identification Zone over the East China Sea, and it seems its likely going to do that for the South China Sea, it infers that they’re effectively provoking war, because the inference is that they will fire upon aircraft and vessels in the sea which don’t give identification, which goes against the whole ‘freedom of passage’. So in fact anyone that wants freedom of passage on the sea, anyone that wants to uphold international law DOES have a stake in this issue, and so China’s announcement that other countries shouldn’t interfere is complete nonsense and is only meant to convince people that are just keen enough to have an opinion, yet ignorant enough of the history and not curious enough to know the truth and justification of the matter.
Basically the tribunal has a high chance that it is going to rule against China.
-The china gov has said it’s already not going to accept the ruling…. which shows that they have some inclination as to how such a decision is likely to go.
-ASEAN nations wish it to go against China, because it is not just the Philippines that have a stake in it, many countries claim a part of the sea as their own.
– The UNCLOS, for which China is actually a signatory to, has the right to state what is what, despite what the China gov. claims
– There is the freedom of navigation in the area which the China gov, has been trying to deny due to its likely announcement of an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) which it did in the East China Sea..
– And with the UNCLOS United Nations Clauses for Laws of the Sea, they have the right to decide what IS islands and rocks, and reefs, and what that means for claims in the sea. Plus, the biggest island ‘Itu Aba’ is apparently actually owned by Taiwan. And if it is the case that The mainland Ch. gov. doesn’t own Taiwan…then they have no claim over the biggest island, which is the only one that’s likely to be claimed an actual ‘island’ under UNCLOS.
http://asean.org/?static_post=declaration-on-the-conduct-of-parties-in-the-south-china-sea-2
The page that shows the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to which China is a signatory to. Read the article for yourself, there are many for which China has not lived up to however one in particular stands out.
- The Parties undertake to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.
On the China front, it is likely that the Ch. gov will direct its people to make it difficult for the Philippine people and anyone that ‘interferes’ in the issue. By provoking its own citizens to stand up to other countries through the high levels of Nationalism Chinese citizens have, which is still the product of misinformation and propaganda, it will cause troubles for Philippine expats and businesses in China as well as any other country and their citizens residing in China, which ensures that countries opposing China’s viewpoint have to think about the safety of their citizens and are not ‘free’ to promote their own opinion as much as if China was not to do this.
Essentially, if China is allowed to take on each country 1 by 1, it can strategically manipulate etc. and win this argument.
However when the decision is based on rule of law (international law), and groups of countries that apparently ‘don’t have a stake’ yet actually do, i.e. the stake of freedom of navigation, then China has no chance. Thus the reason to ‘divide and conquer’.
The aim for China is to turn its people against other countries, and turn other countries against other countries by stating that they have ‘no stake’ and ‘should not interfere’. Yet of course this is just not true.
If you would like some detailed information and some nice infographics on this issue. Watch the discussion from the Center for Strategic & International Studies about The South China Sea Arbitration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pNnIMkTimU
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