Philippines 0 - 1 China

[Aimless]

Chinese claims on strategic parts of the South China Sea rejected by Hague:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-36771749

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-against-china

Would like to congratulate China on this expected and well-deserved victory.


On a more serious note, what will come of this? Will China succumb to diplomatic pressure? Will there be any diplomatic pressure? From whom?

[earthJoker]

Diplomatic pressure? What the Philippines needs is ships.

[Loki]

International law for China is what facts are for Rand = something is international law only when it furthers Chinese interests.

Diplomatic pressure? What the Philippines needs is ships.

That's what America is for. It's resuming its military presence there for the first time in a quarter century.

[RandBlade]

China's view is might is right.

I believe in facts, I don't believe in myths Loki.

[Loki]

I think we already established that a fact is something you agree with and a myth is something you disagree with.

[RandBlade]

No we have not. There are plenty of theories which may or may not be accurate but I hate to break this to you, theories are not facts. Name a single actual fact I disagree with.

[earthJoker]

That's what America is for. It's resuming its military presence there for the first time in a quarter century.

Exactly. The US is the only entity that can help the Philippines in this case.

[RandBlade]

With might, not lawyers.

[earthJoker]

Lawyers? Legally, everything has been said that needed to be said. We are talking about law enforcement now.

[Loki]

With might, not lawyers.

You need both. Even the realists say as much:

"Since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

Edit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...uling-matters/

[wiggin]

Lawyers? Legally, everything has been said that needed to be said. We are talking about law enforcement now.

AFAIK there is no enforcement mechanism for UNCLOS/PCA decisions. So yes, the involvement of USN ships in e.g. freedom of navigation (or innocent passage) operations may continue, but I doubt that any enforcement action will be taken to, for example, stop Chinese land reclamation work on various reefs in the SCS, or the stop the building of airbases and surveillance facilities, or anything else. It's a valuable negotiating tool but in terms of an enforceable ruling I think it has limited value. Neither the US nor the Philippines is likely to start a shooting war over this issue.

I do think that you'll see more aggressive moves by the US to contain Chinese aggression in the SCS by, for example, enhancing basing agreements in nearby countries and providing military hardware (especially naval and air defense weaponry). But I'm not convinced that much else will come of this. China has long theoretically recognized that the status of the SCS features should be determined through negotiations, but in practice they have been establishing a fait accompli that no one is likely to challenge.