South China Sea Strategies for other nations (Not China)

[advill]

We await the outcome/rulings of the Hague International Court on 12 July 2016. We can then independently comment accordingly. No point of pre-empting anything. My hunch is that the matter will eventually be settled amicably. The alternative is disastrous with no winner/s.

 

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FON is just freedom to navigate the seas, a right established by customary international law and UNCLOS. The US leadership is in the FONOP program by challenging excessive maritime claims outside the UNCLOS provisions. The source of any tension is attributed to countries operating outside established rules. If countries operate within the rules then there is no source for tension. A simple cause and effect principle which is blinded by pure ideology that even defies basic logic.

The so called "established rules" is NOT written in stone therefore are irrelevant. The FONOP is an excuse to use military might to intimidate anyone or country challenging the "established rules" that hasn't even did anything to calm the tensions in the SCS but rather making it worse. Freedom of navigation is a made up excuse, there is nothing that prevents ships from navigating the waters of South China sea, ships are free two travel anywhere except the 12 miles of each islands in the South China sea, which is an international standard.

 

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Could you actually name those 60 nations PRC claims?
According to Wall Streets Journal there are no more then 8 nations.

You mean only 8 voice their support publicly? Meanwhile the rest still got Beijing's back. Now, now don't be skipping the entire truth.

 

[SamuraiBlue]

You mean only 8 voice their support publicly? Meanwhile the rest still got Beijing's back. Now, now don't be skipping the entire truth.

You mean PRC claims 60 nations are siding with PRC while most stays silent or publicly denies PRC's claim.

Here is another commentary article about the present case.

UN sea law lays down the rules for the planet's oceans
Sophie Mignon July 10, 2016
The Hague (AFP) - Centuries before international laws, pirates ruled the high seas, plundering and pillaging wherever they went.

Into this dangerous, unruly seascape steamed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which will be the basis for a historic court judgement on Tuesday in a dispute between China and the Philippines over the South China Sea.

Here are the answers to four questions about the obscure convention known by its acronym UNCLOS:

- What does it do? -

With at least 320 articles and nine annexes, the convention covers all aspects of regulating the planet's vast oceans and maritime waters.

It is the authority on everything from national sovereignty over the exploitation of natural resources, navigation and disputes between nations.

According to the UN website, the convention "lays down a comprehensive regime of law and order in the world's oceans and seas, establishing rules governing all uses of the oceans and their resources."

- What are its origins? -

For many centuries the only law of the seas was brute force. In the 17th century, a country's rights over the seas were limited to "a narrow belt" extending from its coastline.

"The remainder of the seas was proclaimed to be free to all and belonging to none," the UN says on its website.

But by the second half of the 20th century, new technologies, modern oil and gas extraction methods, and a booming population gave rise to growing tensions around lucrative fishing grounds and competing demands for the rights to precious resources.... to read more

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Loved this part;

The convention also established the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), which along with the PCA and the International Court of Justice can rule on matters brought under UNCLOS.

 

[Brumby]

What "established rules" do you mean? What legitimacy do they have?

UNCLOS.

The so called "established rules" is NOT written in stone therefore are irrelevant.

You are confusing between relevancy and permanency. I agree no established rules are written in stone but what is in existence is the de jure stone. Until such time the existing stone is replaced it is the only stone in town. Your hypothetical stone will have to wait for its turn.

The FONOP is an excuse to use military might to intimidate anyone or country challenging the "established rules" that hasn't even did anything to calm the tensions in the SCS but rather making it worse.

Please tell me by reasoning or logic how does a vessel exercising FON in a global commons be intimidating. In contrast, actively preventing fishermen and their fishing vessels in conducting their livelihood by outsized Coast Guard vessels does meet your meaning of intimidation.

Freedom of navigation is a made up excuse, there is nothing that prevents ships from navigating the waters of South China sea, ships are free two travel anywhere except the 12 miles of each islands in the South China sea, which is an international standard.

Someone forgot to send the memo to the Chinese Coast guard preventing the Filipino fishermen from fishing in Scarborough Shoals.

 

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UNCLOS.


You are confusing between relevancy and permanency. I agree no established rules are written in stone but what is in existence is the de jure stone. Until such time the existing stone is replaced it is the only stone in town. Your hypothetical stone will have to wait for its turn.

Relevancy requires agreement from the world not the few. Such because it is the "only stone in town" doesn't make it right. Therefore it can be challenge and change for the greater good.

Please tell me by reasoning or logic how does a vessel exercising FON in a global commons be intimidating. In contrast, actively preventing fishermen and their fishing vessels in conducting their livelihood by outsized Coast Guard vessels does meet your meaning of intimidation.

There's a difference between a war ship and a cargo ship. You obviously are ok with whatever the US are doing is for the good of the world and China is evil because they're communism. The value of Christian god must be preserve at all cost (this is how these mental midget religious freaks thinks).

Someone forgot to send the memo to the Chinese Coast guard preventing the Filipino fishermen from fishing in Scarborough Shoals.

Did those Philippine fishermen illegally fish in someone else's backyard? The so called "Scarborough Shoals" don't belong to them. China owns it far longer than your country or the Philippine's had even existed.

 

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You mean PRC claims 60 nations are siding with PRC while most stays silent or publicly denies PRC's claim.

Here is another commentary article about the present case.



Loved this part;

You mean the Philippine's didn't have anybody to support them? Seems to me that China won her case before it even begins.

 

[joshuatree]

The problem is not that both nations were not prepared to negotiate. They were negotiating for years before the Philippines decided to go for compulsory arbitration. The problem is that China insist on capitulation as a precondition.

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Strawman argument about China insisting on capitulation as a precondition is enough to completely terminate talks. Nothing prevents the Filipinos from pursuing a dual track by filing their case and talks at the same time. In fact, having both would influence the talks, that's the art of negotiations.

I haven't seen any of the other claimants ever propose they don't have indisputable sovereignty over their claims either. The negotiations that went for years did produce positive steps such as the joint exploration but that was scuttled by the Filipinos themselves. To discount that development and not attributing responsibility on the Filipinos for generating additional ill-will in the already-strained relations would be very one sided.

Freedom of navigation is a made up excuse, there is nothing that prevents ships from navigating the waters of South China sea, ships are free two travel anywhere except the 12 miles of each islands in the South China sea, which is an international standard.

Someone forgot to send the memo to the Chinese Coast guard preventing the Filipino fishermen from fishing in Scarborough Shoals.

CCG preventing whoever to fish within 12 NM of Scarborough is not a FON issue. That would be a territorial sea rights issue and one can argue about the ownership of the feature as disputed but that's not FON, let's not mix the two. Even the Filipino case side-stepped Scarborough and 12 NM so whatever ruling coming won't provide any relief in that matter but so many Filipinos are under the perception that it will.

 

[Equation]

You mean PRC claims 60 nations are siding with PRC while most stays silent or publicly denies PRC's claim.

Here is another commentary article about the present case.



Loved this part;

Here is a better one. Coming from Time Magazine as well.

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The U.S. is one of the most vocal countries urging China to hew to international arbitration in the vital waterway. Beijing isn't impressed
A great power refuses to play by international rules, declining to ratify a major U.N. convention to which more than 160 other countries are party. After years of complaints, the nation convinces the U.N. to tweak the treaty to many of its specifications. Yet even after those amendments, the great power’s legislature prioritizes protectionist sentiment over respect for global rule of law.

This renegade country, though, is not China, which has come under fire for saying it will

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on its territorial claims in the South China Sea. Instead, the longtime outlier is the U.S., one of the most vocal countries urging China to hew to the international order.

In 1982, after around a decade of wrangling, the U.N. hammered out a framework to guide global maritime affairs and ensure freedom of navigation. Called the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), the treaty covers everything from the rules of maritime commerce to the ways in which resource-rich seabeds can be divvied up between nations. In certain cases, international courts like the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, can rule in maritime disputes.

On July 12, that judicial body will decide on a lawsuit lodged in 2013 by the Philippines, one of six governments that

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. At stake is whether Chinese-controlled rocks and reefs — many of which have been turned over the past couple years

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through extensive reclamation — are eligible for so-called exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the surrounding sea. These zones, which are defined by UNCLOS and can extend up to 200 nautical miles, give governments the right to all natural resources found in those waters. For all of Beijing’s dredging in the South China Sea, if the court rules that the atolls under Chinese control are not naturally formed islands fit for human habitation or economic life, China will lose international legal claim over much of the contested waterway.


Many legal experts expect the court to rule at least

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. Yet China says it won’t abide by the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling nor does Beijing even accept the U.N. tribunal’s authority over its South China Sea claims. Last month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei reiterated China’s official position. “I again stress that the arbitration court has no jurisdiction in the case,” he said. “China does not accept any dispute resolution from a third party and does not accept any dispute resolution forced on China.”

But first back to history. Shortly after UNCLOS was unveiled in 1982, U.S. President Ronald Reagan refused to sign what was touted as the “constitution of the sea,” claiming the convention undermined U.S. sovereignty. In 1994, after UNCLOS was revised to take into consideration American worries about losing control of valuable underwater oil and natural-gas deposits, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed an updated UNCLOS agreement, although not the entire treaty. Yet even though multiple presidential Administrations — both Democrat and Republican — have since supported the convention, Republicans in the U.S. Senate have routinely scuttled efforts to ratify UNCLOS. Meanwhile, even landlocked countries like Mongolia, Burkina Faso and Bolivia have signed on to the treaty.

Washington’s outsider position undercuts its message as it urges China to respect global maritime norms. After all, China ratified UNCLOS in 1996, even if Beijing now says it rejects any judgment by the Permanent Court of Arbitration. In a speech in Washington earlier this month, retired Chinese top diplomat Dai Bingguo accused the U.S. of “heavy-handed intervention” in the South China Sea. “Accidents could happen,” said the still influential Chinese Communist Party official, “and the South China Sea might sink into chaos and so might the entirety of Asia.” Still, even as Beijing has launched a public-relations blitz ahead of the July 12 ruling, Chinese state media and diplomatic statements have not highlighted America’s AWOL status in UNCLOS. Perhaps critiquing the U.S. absence is harder when China itself is distancing itself from one of the treaty’s utilized tribunals.

It’s true that even if Congress hasn’t ratified UNCLOS,

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, which is the world’s largest, adheres to its principles. American top brass openly support U.S. ratification. “I think that in the 21st century our moral standing is affected by the fact that we are not a signatory to UNCLOS,” said Admiral Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year.

In a June speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. President Barack Obama urged Congress to move ahead on UNCLOS. “If we’re truly concerned about China’s actions in the South China Sea,” he said in his commencement address, “the Senate should help strengthen our case by approving the Law of the Sea convention, as our military leaders have urged.” But ratifying the convention will require a two-thirds majority in the Senate, an all but impossibility particularly in this contentious election year. The U.S. Navy will continue to ply the high seas, acting as the world’s oceanic policeman by engaging in

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to ensure open trade routes.

But American hypocrisy when it comes to maritime rule of law looks likely to endure.

 

[Brumby]

Strawman argument about China insisting on capitulation as a precondition is enough to completely terminate talks.

Firstly I am surprised that you invoke my argument as strawman. Although we have opposing views I do find your arguments typically sound except on this occasion. A strawman proposition is when I attempt to rebut a shadow instead of the body as sufficiency. Where is the strawman?
The reported precondition as set by China is not some incidental conditions but is core to the dispute i.e. sovereignty. Such a precondition undermines the whole purpose of the negotiation as it is capitulation on a core issue. In fact I would venture to say that for China to insist on such a precondition is sufficient to label China as not negotiating in good faith. As such, one can hardly fault the Philippines in terminating the talks.

Nothing prevents the Filipinos from pursuing a dual track by filing their case and talks at the same time. In fact, having both would influence the talks, that's the art of negotiations.

The issue of the conversation as I said is whether the precondition sets up a climate for continuing negotiations. The Philippines made a choice under the said conditions and legally and philosophically there is no obligation on the Philippines to pursue dual track. That may be your argument but is merely a choice.

I haven't seen any of the other claimants ever propose they don't have indisputable sovereignty over their claims either. The negotiations that went for years did produce positive steps such as the joint exploration but that was scuttled by the Filipinos themselves. To discount that development and not attributing responsibility on the Filipinos for generating additional ill-will in the already-strained relations would be very one sided.

The other claimants don't set it as a precondition in the negotiations (at least I have not seen any evidence of it). Your example of the joint exploration is testament that both countries can come to some acceptable arrangement when sovereignty is not in the picture. It affirms the fact that by placing it as a precondition, China is in fact sabotaging the prospect of any talks.

CCG preventing whoever to fish within 12 NM of Scarborough is not a FON issue. That would be a territorial sea rights issue and one can argue about the ownership of the feature as disputed but that's not FON, let's not mix the two. Even the Filipino case side-stepped Scarborough and 12 NM so whatever ruling coming won't provide any relief in that matter but so many Filipinos are under the perception that it will.

The side stepping by the Philippines regarding the 12 nm is for the purpose of the arbitration. My point about impediment was over access to navigate. They are not the same discussions.