By James R. Holmes
How will China respond to the UNCLOS ruling in the Philippines tribunal case?
A question came up last week in Honolulu: what will China do if the Law of the Sea Tribunal rules in favor of the Philippines in the two nations’ quarrel over maritime territory? You get two guesses, and the first doesn’t count. Here’s mine. Beijing will not comply with an adverse ruling. Why would it accept an edict from a body created by a treaty when it flouts the explicit language of that treaty? And why would it obey at steep political cost and risk to the Chinese Communist Party? The only real questions are how Beijing will attempt to circumvent or nullify such a decision, and what damage may result from its defiance.
I’m assuming, of course, that the legal proceedings go Manila’s way. As they must. This is as close to an open-and-shut case as it gets in international law. In effect Manila is asking jurists to invalidate the nine-dashed line that Beijing has inscribed around the periphery of the South China Sea, delineating its claim to nearly all of that body of water. The nine-dashed line is outlandish on its face. China’s map dates at least to 1947, to an old Republic of China claim to regional waters. It would be astounding happenstance if the nine-dashed line, which predates the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea by 35 years, did conform to the treaty.
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