No matter
how Tuesday's verdict by an international tribunal on China's South China Sea
claim is viewed, and whatever its immediate consequences, the watershed ruling
will bring about a "new normal" in Southeast Asia that portends more
regional tensions and potential conflict in the longer term.
This
"new normal" means that the status quo before Manila took its case
against China to the dispute-settling Arbitral Tribunal under the United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in January 2013 will not be restored.
China will effectively control the areas it has claimed and in which it has
constructed features and facilities, even though the tribunal's damning ruling
suggests it has no legal right to do so. It behooves China now as an aspiring
global leader to be satisfied with its neighborhood fait accompli and start to
compromise with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations by working
toward the group's proposed rules-based Code of Conduct for Parties in the
South China Sea (CoC).
For
ASEAN, particularly for the Philippines, the favorable ruling may prove a
Pyrrhic victory unless the resilient but divided regional organization can
close ranks and put up a united and persuasive stand to rein in China's
maritime claims.
As in
most tit-for-tat spats of this kind, culpability in the Philippines-China
conflict is in the beholder's eyes. Beijing has insisted that Manila instigated
the legal brouhaha by petitioning the tribunal in violation of the 2002
Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, an ASEAN-China
goodwill document to engender mutual trust and confidence. Manila's move was
triggered by China's seizure of Scarborough Shoal near Luzon Island in July
2012. China wanted a negotiated outcome to the dispute on a bilateral basis,
while the Philippines internationalized its case at the UNCLOS level and also
with the U.S, its longtime treaty ally. In turn, the Obama administration's
widening "pivot to Asia" at the time reinforced Beijing's fear of a
strategic encirclement by America's allies and partners in the East and South
China seas.
China's
ensuing construction of a string of artificial islands in the South China Sea
quickly raised regional temperatures. Pressed by the Philippines at the
tribunal and under diplomatic pressure from maritime ASEAN claimant states like
Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, China saw fit to cash in some of its
patron-client ties with Cambodia and Laos, two small mainland ASEAN states, for
diplomatic backup. It also kept non-claimants Myanmar and Thailand on side as
these two larger ASEAN mainland countries have had to rely on China's support
more than ASEAN's for domestic reasons. China also enticed tiny Brunei to take
its side.
ASEAN pays the price
Beijing's
maneuvers have thrown ASEAN into unprecedented diplomatic disarray, unable to
take a unified position on the South China Sea over the past several years.
Without unity, ASEAN cannot play its traditional central role in Asia's
regional architecture-building. Without such architecture to ensure order and
stability, Asia will only see more tension and confrontation.
In
Tuesday's decision, the tribunal ruled in unmistakable terms on the legal
status of all land features in the Philippines' 15 submissions, from submerged
reefs that cannot qualify as rocks, and from rocks that cannot be converted
into islands, each with its own maritime entitlements. As if to add insult to
injury, the ruling also reprimanded China for the environmental damage it has caused
through its land build-up in the sea. While the Philippines did not win all
that it asked for, China implicitly won none -- even though it took no part in
the legal process. The tribunal's landmark decision squarely rejected China's
aims to apply its controversial "nine-dash line" map from 1947 based
on "historic rights" of owning more than 80% of the South China Sea.
What
happens after the ruling is now more important than what preceded it. The
ruling will test ASEAN's unity more than ever. Rather than issuing a joint
statement, ASEAN member countries are more likely to take individual positions
in the immediate aftermath. The key test will come in late July when the ASEAN
foreign ministers' meeting will be expected to produce a joint statement and a
united front on the tribunal's ruling ahead of ASEAN-related summits in early
September. A lot of fudging and muddling will be on display, which will only
highlight the glaring absence of a joint communique with clear positioning on
the South China Sea. Without such a unified position, ASEAN will be
structurally stuck and divided between sea and land, between claimants and
non-claimants, sympathetic toward China and those who feel otherwise. Never has
ASEAN unity and cohesion been more needed than after the Philippines' legal
victory over China.
It is now
critical that the Philippines does not overplay its hand by mobilizing
international sentiment or tapping its U.S. alliance. Manila - as it has
suggested -- would do well for ASEAN-China relations by backing off despite its
legal upper hand. Beijing deserves to be given some diplomatic space whereby
Singapore as country coordinator for ASEAN-China relations can play a mediating
role. Ultimately, the ruling should pose an opportunity for ASEAN and China to
mend their rifts by jointly crafting a workable code of conduct in the disputed
sea. China should know after the ruling that its actions that violate maritime
rights and sovereignty of neighbors come with a high cost. It is not worth
China's longer term ambitions for a top place in the global pecking order to be
locking horns with a smaller neighbor over reefs and rocks -- and then to
ignore an international ruling in the event. It would simply be conduct
unbecoming of a respected and respectable global superpower.
Thitinan
Pongsudhirak
Thitinan Pongsudhirak teaches international
political economy and directs the Institute of Security and International
Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
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