China should abandon its Kuomintang legacy
which removes a source of between the two countries. conflict
War full of risks for China
Under the tribunal’s ruling, China has the legal obligation to respect the Philippines’ exclusive sovereign rights to explore and exploit the Reed Bank. A threat of war to prevent the Philippines from exercising such sovereign rights would evidently be a violation of the tribunal’s ruling. If China goes to war, it would further constitute aggression, which the UN Charter and the Rome treaty seek to prevent. ( China, like other major military powers, has not joined the Rome treaty that seeks to punish aggression.)
President Rodrigo Duterte’s statement that China has threatened war possibly was intended as a trial balloon to show China that there is a limit to how far the Philippine government can accommodate China’s interests under Chinese pressure.
The arbitral ruling has given the Philippines an ace in its dialogue with China over the South China Sea. The law is on the Philippines’ side and if China uses brute force to deny us our sovereign rights, this would make China an international delinquent and would be full of risks for China, even if the war could be limited to a low- intensity conflict.
First, it would disrobe China of its pretension to be the champion of the developing countries. In the course of debates during the negotiations of the Convention, “China actively positioned itself as one of the foremost defenders of the rights of developing States and was resolutely opposed to any suggestion that coastal States could be obliged to share the resources of the exclusive economic zone with other powers that had historically fished in those waters,” according to the tribunal’s findings. China has reversed its negotiating position.
Second, China would have to reckon with the reaction of the other 166 Contracting Parties to the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. China would have no
and would be with respect not only to the Convention but also with the UN Charter itself as well as with other major treaties, to which the great majority of countries are also parties, such as the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Third, any aggression against the Philippines would upset its relations with Asean as a dialogue partner and particularly cause alarm to Indonesia and the other Asean countries bordering the South China Sea.
Fourth, the South China Sea is the busiest maritime highway of international trade. The tension in the area would affect the economies of the countries in the region, cause greater harm to China’s economy, and slow down the global economy.
Fifth, China’s Road and Belt initiative will not thrive in an atmosphere of tension and instability. With this ambitious project to make China great, China can ill afford to act as an international delinquent.
Sixth, it would put the United States on the spot with unforeseeable consequences. The US has a Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines whose Article V provides that “… an armed attack on either of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on … its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.”
Seventh, China would lose the Philippines as a strategic ally possibly during the lifetime of President Xi Jinping.
Is China a friend?
The Philippines was its best friend at the 2017 Asean and related summits. The emergence of President Duterte was like receiving manna from heaven for China. China needs the Philippines’ friendship ( with its strategic location at the center of the archipelagic continent) and Asean’s cooperation for its ambitious global strategy,
The pertinent question to ask is whether China is a friend of the Philippines, rather than whether the Philippines can enforce the tribunal’s ruling. With respect to the Reed Bank particularly, this is a negative obligation on the part of China. It only calls for China not to interfere and threaten the Philippines. The nine- dash line is also the source of China’s conflict with its other ASEAN maritime neighbors.
The government of the People’s Republic of China inherited the ninedash line from its rival Nationalist ( Kuomintang) government, which first published the nine- dash line in an official Chinese map in 1948. China has now a choice of complying with its obligation to harmonize its laws with the Convention and remove a source of conflict ( as the Philippines did when it abandoned the treaty limits doctrine) or be in conflict with its Asean maritime neighbors. If China should make the right choice, the Code of Conduct being negotiated between Asean and China could draft a form of words that will give China a graceful way to abandon the Kuomintang legacy and begin a new era of unquestionable friendship between China and its Asean maritime neighbors.