BEIJING—An international tribunal emphatically rejected China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, raising regional tensions and forcing Beijing into a conundrum over how to respond: ignore international law, or yield ground to its neighbors and the U.S.
The tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the Philippines, which had brought the case. Most damaging for China was the decision invalidating its claims to historic rights in all the waters within a nine-dash line covering most of the South China Sea.
The judges also ruled Beijing couldn’t claim broad zones for exclusive economic use and excoriated a range of China’s behavior, from its massive building of artificial islands to its failure to protect the marine environment.
Tuesday’s verdict alters the dynamics of a contest between China and the U.S. that has intensified as Beijing has sought to enforce its claims—and challenge Washington’s military dominance—by expanding naval and coast-guard operations and building seven fortified artificial islands.
The ruling dramatically reduces the area where China can claim maritime rights and opens the door to further legal challenges; in all, five governments have claims that overlap with Beijing’s in the resource-rich South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest trade routes. And it allows foreign navy ships to approach China’s two biggest artificial islands without restriction.
But it also poses challenges for the U.S. and its allies—especially the Philippines—as they seek to use it as a way to rein in China while protecting their economic interests and avoiding military confrontation.
U.S. officials were guarded in addressing the ruling. The Obama administration said the decision would contribute to regional talks—while making clear the onus was on China to comply.
An international tribunal ruled Tuesday that China’s claim to historic rights in most of the South China Sea has no legal basis, dealing a severe setback to Beijing that the U.S. fears could intensify Chinese efforts to establish its control by force.
“It is both our hope and our expectation that China will abide by its legally binding obligations under this decision,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “The world is watching to see if China is really the global power it professes itself to be, and the responsible power that it professes itself to be.”
Beijing said it wouldn’t comply with the ruling. To accept any part of it would be hugely politically risky for President Xi Jinping, who has pledged to rejuvenate the nation and vowed not to compromise on Beijing’s territorial claims.
In the wake of the verdict, China’s official Xinhua News Agency took aim at Western countries it said were bent on containing its rise. “This is a bundle of fairy rope the West has tossed out at a strategic moment in a vain attempt to terminate China’s development,” it said. It repeated Mr. Xi’s earlier assertion that China “doesn’t cause trouble, but it also doesn’t fear trouble.”
To placate its fiercely nationalistic public, China is likely to maintain the barrage of invective against the tribunal, the U.S. and the Philippines and to sustain its military activities in the South China Sea over the next weeks and months, according to diplomats. Over the longer term, however, failure to bring its claims gradually into line with the ruling would increase the chances of fresh lawsuits, and risk casting Beijing as an international outlaw.
It would also undermine Beijing’s longstanding claim to be a champion of weaker nations, and jeopardize Mr. Xi’s other goal of winning a leadership role for China—alongside the U.S.—in the international community.
“Complete disregard for the ruling would easily lead to physical clashes and invite greater diplomatic pressure,” while complete observance of the ruling “is basically impossible,” said Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. “The reality will likely fall within these two extremes.”
Attempting to cow neighbors into submission could also drive some, particularly Vietnam, another South China Sea claimant, to seek even closer defense ties with the U.S. to counterbalance Chinese power.
Even Indonesia, which long maintained it had no maritime dispute with Beijing, has been drawn into the fray in recent months following a series of clashes with Chinese ships in waters where Jakarta claims exclusive economic rights.
In comments relayed by state media, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi suggested Beijing could sit down with new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to resolve the dispute in direct talks. “This farce is now over. It’s time we get back to the regular path,” he said.
The unanimous decision by the five judges is legally binding on China and the Philippines but can be enforced only through international pressure in public statements, private negotiations or resolutions at the United Nations.
Beijing can likely continue to resist such pressure with the help of dozens of countries—mostly smaller developing nations—that it says support its position, although only a handful of them have issued statements to that effect. As a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, China can use its veto against any resolution there.
At home, Mr. Xi is facing calls for a sterner response.
“If China continues to be all bark and no bite, and not make the Philippines suffer concrete pressure and losses, can we prevent other South China Sea claimant states from copying their methods?” said a post on the verified Weibo microblog of Gao Cheng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Science’s Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies.
China has a range of other potential responses, including withdrawing from the U.N. maritime convention that underpins the ruling, beginning land reclamation at the Scarborough Shoal, an outcrop that it seized from the Philippines in 2012, and declaring an air-defense identification zone.
Those would all intensify the international reaction, however, and reduce the chances of a deal with Manila. The U.S. has had an aircraft-carrier strike group in the South China Sea for the past few weeks and has warned Beijing against declaring the air-defense zone or starting work at Scarborough Shoal.
The tribunal’s declaration that China had no claim to exclusive economic rights in the Spratlys archipelago reduces China’s legal claims to the 12 nautical miles surrounding a handful of rocks there. It also ruled that the two largest artificial islands, Mischief reef and Subi reef, which both have airstrips, have no territorial waters.
U.S. Navy ships have patrolled nearby in recent months, but have been cautious about going within 12 nautical miles. A closer approach at those two structures is now considered legal under Tuesday’s ruling.
Still, the U.S. also has to calibrate its response carefully and is likely to avoid more intrusive U.S. military operations in the immediate aftermath of the ruling, to prevent a further escalation of tensions, diplomats and security analysts say.
At the same time, the U.S. is concerned that the Philippines—a U.S. treaty ally—shouldn’t undermine the tribunal’s ruling in any agreement it reaches with China, diplomats say.
The ruling is the first major foreign-policy test for Mr. Duterte, the new Philippine leader, who suggested during his recent election campaign that he was open to talks with Beijing in exchange for economic assistance. However, he must tread a delicate path.
“There is overwhelming public opinion against China on this issue [among Filipinos]. The president cannot go against that,” said Ramon Casiple, political commentator in Manila. “The Philippines wants to retain its close relations with the U.S., while opening doors with China.”
Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay called the ruling a milestone in efforts to address regional disputes and urged “those concerned to exercise restraint and sobriety.”
Australia—a close U.S. ally—urged both the Philippines and China to abide by the ruling. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Australia would “continue to exercise our international law rights to freedom of navigation and overflight, and support the right of others to do so.”
Paul Reichler, the U.S. attorney who led Manila’s legal team, said the ruling benefited not only the Philippines, but other states bordering the South China Sea, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
“If China’s nine-dash line is invalid as to the Philippines, it is equally invalid to those states and, indeed, the rest of the international community,” he said.http://www.wsj.com/articles/south-china-sea-ruling-puts-beijing-in-a-corner-1468365807
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