PCA ruling on South China Sea will end up exacerbating tensions

It is interesting to note that none of the seven submissions deal explicitly with the crux of the South China Sea disputes – China’s sovereignty over the territory. Instead, the Philippines asked the court to decide if the disputed natural structures such as Scarborough Shoal are a rock, a reef, or an island, noting that an island carries with it the 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone, whereas a rock, and a reef of low tide elevations do not. The closest the submissions come to broaching on the sovereignty issue is the Philippines’ argument that China has violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

China has made it clear that these questions have no relevance because the entire area inside the nine-dash line where those structures are located is under its sovereignty. And in this day and age, it will be impossible for Beijing to back down from its territorial claim without facing a severe backlash domestically. China has repeatedly rejected the legality and legitimacy of the Philippines’ submissions and the jurisdiction of the PCA to rule on the territorial conflicts, and has never participated in the court procedures to avoid legitimising it. Besides, it is true that the PCA has no jurisdiction to rule on the issue of sovereignty. The disputes in the South China Sea have been characterised as the battleground for the 21st century’s ”Great War.” Previously, there were only two such wars.

The PCA ruling is likely to exacerbate tensions in the disputed territories, not alleviate it. This is simply because it is unlikely that all sides will agree on what constitutes “legal clarity” of opposing territorial claims and the rule of law that could serve as the underpinning on disputed settlements. Moreover, the PCA has no mechanism to enforce its verdict.

To be fair, the legality and legitimacy of China’s nine-dash line cannot be entirely dismissed. Those lines were asserted by the government of the Republic of China (ROC) in 1947 after Japan conceded all the territories in Southeast Asia it occupied during World War II after its defeat. The mistake by the victorious West at that time was it failed to name the recipient of the conceded islands, not until the Peace Treaty with Japan was signed in 1951 when it was stipulated that these territories would go to ROC.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was not formed until 1949 when the Communist Party took over Mainland China and the ROC evacuated to Taiwan. It then reasserted its sovereign claim over the area within the nine-dash line.

However, after 1949, the PRC was not strong enough politically and militarily, especially in its naval capability and hardware to claim its sovereignty over the South China Sea. But that does not mean the PRC was willing to compromise its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping consistently characterised the PRC’s approach to the maritime disputes in the South China Sea as “sovereignty is ours; defer disputes; engage in joint development”. During his time, the emphasis was on the second two clauses.

But China’s rapid rise as the world’s major economic powerhouse changed that. Ironically, the promulgation of the UNCLOS in 1982, requiring all nations to file formal declarations of their baselines by May 2009, or lose their rights to seabed and offshore resources, accelerated the shift in China’s focus to Deng’s statement: “Sovereignty is ours” and brought it to the forefront of China’s foreign policy. 

For Chinese decision-makers, the South China Sea – both the waters and the islands – are and have been Chinese territory. At present, China has a strong and capable People’s Liberation Navy supported by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force and the Second Artillery that outmatches any navy in Southeast Asia to safeguard its expansive territorial claim.

Some academics have likened Beijing’s South China Sea policy with the American 1823 Monroe Doctrine that effectively made the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea America’s “sphere of influence”. That the US administration under President John F Kennedy was willing to stare at the apocalypse in the nuclear duel with the Soviet Union in 1961 bears testimony to the seriousness of the US resolve in protecting the integrity of its “sphere of influence”. It also has been used to justify the US action in overthrowing democratically elected governments in Latin America, as recently as 2009 in Honduras, when Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State. It was only in  2013 that current Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the era of the Monroe Doctrine was over

However, the comparison serves an example of the danger of misdeeds, miscalculations and accidents that could happen with such a doctrine. The intent and goal of the two policies are quite different. Also, the economic significance of the South China Sea cannot be compared with that of Latin America. The South China Sea is where more than 50 per cent of merchant tonnage of world trade passes through annually. It is the second most used sea lane in the world. More than 10 million barrels of crude oil are shipped through the Strait of Malacca every day. This is not to mention the proven oil reserves of around 7.7 billion barrels and 266 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

A peaceful resolution of the South China Sea conflicts would require enormous wisdom, something that Deng Xiaoping was hoping the new Chinese leadership would possess. Whether this one issue ends up ultimately splitting up Asean remains to be seen. 

Going forward, all the territorial claimants, China included, as well as the presumed external regional policeman the US, should realise that an absolute advantage cannot be attained. If it were, everybody would lose.