26 Juillet 2016
Sophie Boisseau du Rocher

Les Philippines, dont l’asymétrie de puissance avec la Chine est patente, avaient habilement joué sur ce dossier. Lassées et humiliées par les coups de boutoir portés sans scrupules depuis l’occupation des Mischief (1995) par la puissance chinoise dans sa zone économique exclusive en mer de Chine du Sud, les Philippines osaient défier Pékin en déposant une demande d’arbitrage à La Haye : puisqu’il n’était pas possible d’engager un argumentaire construit avec une Chine sûre de sa puissance et de ses coups de force permanents, le seul terrain sur lequel Manille pouvait espérer faire la différence, tel un David rusé face à un Goliath autiste, c’était le terrain légal. Les Philippines sont allées interroger l’interprétation que les Chinois avaient du droit international auquel ils avaient souscrit en signant la Convention des Nations unies sur le droit de la mer (1994).

On l’a mentionné, sur le plan juridique, les arguments chinois « d’un droit historique inaliénable » sont faibles : ce n’est pas parce que des pêcheurs ou des marins chinois ont « historiquement » utilisé ces îles et îlots que la Chine peut prétendre aujourd’hui, exercer sa souveraineté exclusive sur cet espace maritime. Les juges philippins ont donc organisé leur dossier autour de cinq questions techniques de droit maritime qui concernaient l’interprétation abusive de l’application de la Convention UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), notamment les prétentions à la souveraineté sur des récifs immergés seulement à marée haute (lesquels récifs ne constituent pas, la Cour l’a rappelé, des îles et ne peuvent donc faire valoir des eaux territoriales et encore moins une Zone Economique Exclusive).

Au final cependant, ces questions revenaient à interroger la validité des prétentions de la « ligne en neuf traits » (qui figure dorénavant sur les passeports des citoyens chinois et des documents officiels) à délimiter des droits historiques. Pékin ne s’y est pas trompé et a refusé depuis le dépôt de cette demande (2013) de coopérer en affirmant que la Chine ne reconnaîtrait ni n’accepterait la décision d’arbitrage.

Si cet arbitrage ne modifie pas la donne et le rapport de forces sur le terrain, il constitue toutefois une étape décisive car à présent, Pékin est publiquement confronté à la question centrale : peut-elle prétendre être une puissance mondiale si elle ne souscrit pas au droit international qu’elle a elle-même contribué à élaborer par sa participation aux travaux de la Convention sur le droit de la mer ? Peut-elle affirmer sa « souveraineté indiscutable » sur 85.7 % de l’espace maritime en mer de Chine du Sud, soit sur 3 millions de km² sans tenir compte des pays voisins ?

L’initiative philippine était en quelque sorte une initiative désespérée, celle de l’ultime chance. Grâce aux progrès de sa projection de force – notamment navale, à l’assurance de son poids économique et à un discours politique nationaliste très musclé, Pékin a en effet progressivement occupé cet espace maritime stratégique (à la fois en termes de navigation mais aussi de ressources) face à une Asie du Sud-Est dispersée et ne disposant évidemment pas des mêmes moyens.

Après l’occupation des Mischeef en 1995, celle de Scarborough en 2012, la marine de l’Armée Populaire de Libération déployait en janvier 2014, trois bâtiments de guerre à James Shoal pour y tenir une cérémonie de manifestation de souveraineté. Le président philippin Benigno Aquino Jr. s’interrogeait : jusqu’où va aller la Chine ? Sommes-nous dans le même cas de figure que les Européens face à Hitler lors des accords de Munich et va-t-on laisser faire ? Le petit David posait en filigrane la question centrale des fondements de l’ordre international contemporain.

Dès 2013, Pékin a dénoncé la « manipulation » juridique philippine et le principe même du recours en rappelant à maintes reprises que la Chine ne serait pas contrainte par ce jugement. A l’annonce du verdict, les autorités, mais aussi les médias et les réseaux sociaux ont exprimé leur colère. Pékin a rapidement réagi en lançant une offensive médiatique pour rappeler ses positions et proférer en filigrane des menaces. Plus essentiel, c’est juste avant le verdict que se tenaient d’importants exercices militaires entre l’île de Hainan et les Paracels ; enfin, le vice-ministre des Affaires étrangères chinois, Liu Zhenmin, a affirmé que la Chine avait « le droit » de proclamer une Zone d’Identification de la Défense Aérienne (ADIZ), geste considéré par les experts comme le franchissement d’une ligne rouge.

Côté philippin, l’arbitrage a été accueilli avec soulagement, comme si Manille retrouvait une dignité perdue après des années d’humiliations. Il ne faut cependant pas surestimer l’intérêt opératoire de ce jugement ; au-delà de l’exploitation des ressources que le président Duterte a déjà annoncé être prêt à partager, les deux questions essentielles pour Pékin sont celle de son autorité (et de la perception de cette autorité auprès de ses voisins) et celle de son déploiement militaire, notamment naval vers le Pacifique. Et sur ces deux questions, Manille – et son allié américain – ne peuvent souscrire aux plans chinois.

Les conséquences régionales devront être suivies avec attention. Les pays d’Asie du Sud-Est concernés (du fait des prétentions chinoises et selon la « ligne en neuf traits », les Philippines perdraient 80 % de leur ZEE en mer des Philippines de l’Ouest, la Malaisie aussi autour de Sabah et Sarawak, le Vietnam 50 %, le Brunei 90 % et l’Indonésie 30 %) auront des arguments sérieux pour souffler et organiser une réponse collective constructive, à travers ou pas l’ASEAN qui pourrait retrouver sur ce dossier, sa « centralité ».

Les conséquences internationales sont tout aussi sérieuses pour l’équilibre des forces mondiales : si la mer de Chine du Sud devenait, du seul fait des ambitions du pouvoir chinois, une mer exclusive, c’est non seulement le droit international qui serait bafoué mais aussi la libre circulation dans un espace vital aux flux mondiaux. C’était d’ailleurs l’argument de poids utilisé par le ministre de la défense français, Jean-Yves Le Drian, lors du Dialogue Shangri-La à Singapour en juin dernier.
​
Les manœuvres chinoises seront suivies de près dans les prochains mois pour déterminer ou pas si Pékin se dirige vers le rapport de force ou vers le compromis.
 
 

https://asialyst.com/fr/2016/07/23/mer-de-chine-du-sud-la-puissance-chinoise-n-a-pas-tous-les-droits/
 

14 July 2016
Bill Hayton
Associate Fellow, Asia Programme

China’s sense of entitlement has collided with international law and, for the time being, lost. The way is open for a new regional understanding. 

The ruling by an arbitral tribunal of five members based in The Hague was simple and devastating. It declares that ‘China’s claims to historic rights… with respect to the maritime areas of the South China Sea encompassed by the relevant part of the “nine-dash line” are contrary to the [The UN] Convention [on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS]’. This is a result that Southeast Asia’s maritime countries have long sought. The way is now clear to resolve all the disputes in the region, if the participants choose to do so.
For decades, countries around the South China Sea lived under the shadow of a quasi-territorial claim that no one really understood. What did the U-shaped, nine-dashed line marked on Chinese maps actually mean? In 2009, the Chinese government attached a copy of the map to an official submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf and the region became alarmed. For the first time, it seemed that China was serious about asserting a claim to all the land and water inside the line.
On Tuesday that claim was dismissed as entirely incompatible with international law. Moreover, the Arbitral Tribunal ruled that not one of the Spratly Islands qualifies as an ‘island’. This ruling is at least as significant: it means none of the features in the archipelago are entitled to an exclusive economic zone. Theoretically it should now be simple to resolve all the maritime disputes in the southern part of the South China Sea. The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines can, in principle, draw lines up to 200 nautical miles out from their coasts and agree compromises where they overlap. China is now irrelevant to this process because its nearest coastline is simply too far away.
All the 50 or so features in the Spratly Islands that are naturally above water at high tide would be granted a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea. The resulting settlement would resemble a Swiss cheese: large areas of exclusive economic zone measured from national coastlines punctuated by a few dozen ‘bubbles’ of disputed territory. This would not resolve the disputes about which country is the rightful owner of those ‘bubbles’ but it would settle the maritime disputes in the sea around them.
Of course, there are still wrinkles. Not least is the Philippines claim to the Malaysian province of Sabah in northern Borneo. This means that, for the time being, those two countries can’t settle the maritime boundary between them. They could, nonetheless, agree how far it projects offshore.
The bigger problem will be China’s attitude. Its response to the tribunal’s ruling has been angry but curiously misdirected. State media have focused their ire on questions of territorial sovereignty – even though the tribunal was barred from even considering this subject. China’s territorial claims to the rocks of the Spratly Islands are entirely unaffected by Tuesday’s ruling. There must be separate processes to resolve those questions.
China has many interests in the South China Sea – including defence, trade routes, fisheries and hydrocarbons – so it’s not surprising that it pursues whatever approach it thinks practical in order to protect them. However, the whole purpose of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was to create an international order that defended the rights of countries to exploit the resources off their own coasts without threat from other states further away. China was a full participant in the negotiations between 1973 and 1982 that created UNCLOS and, at that time, was a strong defender of the rights of coastal countries.
While it may feel that it has lost out from this week’s ruling, China has much to gain from a strong community of regional order in the South China Sea. Most Southeast Asian countries remain alarmed by China’s intentions − which is why, in the past few years, they have been strengthening their ties with the United States and increasing military spending. China’s wider interests would benefit from a de-escalation of this tension. Reassuring its neighbours would give them less reason to rely on the US.
Putting a new maritime order in place, based upon UNCLOS and commitments between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, would be a major step towards this. It would also bring many associated benefits – not least cooperation to protect the region’s fish stocks, which are facing disastrous collapse. The first step is accepting the implications of Tuesday’s ruling.

www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/will-there-now-be-peace-south-china-sea#sthash.w4JnVhlB.dpuf

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA — Prime Minister Hun Sen has announced that China will give Cambodia almost $600 million in aid to support election infrastructure, education and health projects — with a catch.
Sen's Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang, agreed to accommodate Cambodia's aid request during the 11th biennial Asia-Europe Meeting, held this past week in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. China, a key ally of Cambodia and the Southeast Asian country’s largest donor, in return expects support in international forums, including in discussions over the future of the South China Sea.
Friday's announcement followed a landmark ruling at an arbitration court in The Hague, which found that China has no historic claims to areas of the South China Sea that are also claimed by the Philippines.
Sok Touch, dean of Khemarak University in Phnom Penh, said the close relationship between China and Cambodia was due to an alignment of interests, most recently with Cambodia’s tacit approval of China’s actions in that disputed maritime region.
“As we know, foreign policy has no friends or enemies, but only exists because of [states’] interests. So perhaps [it] is because of the South China Sea that Cambodia receives $600 million,” he said. “That’s the first point, and the second point is that Cambodia needs grant aid money to develop the country.”
Chea Vannath, a longtime analyst and Khmer Rouge survivor, welcomed the move by Beijing.
“We are friends rather than enemies. China is a superpower and has been a great friend since [the reign of King Norodom Sihanouk],” she said.
The money will be partly spent on organizing elections slated for 2017 and 2018.
Vannath, however, added that no amount of electoral aid can ensure free and fair elections, citing the jailing of opposition members, the recent slaying of government critic Kem Ley, and outstanding charges against the leaders of the Cambodia National Rescue Party.
“All of this creates a political atmosphere where the preparation of free and fair elections cannot take place,” she said.
This report was produced in collaboration with VOA's Khmer service.

​http://m.voanews.com/a/china-gives-cambodia-millions-exchange-international-support/3421648.html

By AFP
PUBLISHED: 01:41 EST, 17 July 2016 | UPDATED: 01:42 EST, 17 July 2016


Scores of activists were detained in Vietnam's capital on Sunday as they gathered to protest against China after it rejected a recent international ruling that dismissed its claims to much of the South China Sea.
Anti-Chinese sentiment runs deep in communist Vietnam but the country's authoritarian rulers move swiftly to tamp down expressions of public anger, fearful that allowing such protests might embolden criticism of their rule.
Activists had used social media to call for protests in Hanoi on Sunday in the wake of this week's ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague which found there was no legal basis for Beijing's claims to vast swathes of the South China Sea.

The case was brought by the Philippines but the ruling has been a boon for other regional countries like Vietnam who also have competing claims to the strategic sea.
Authorities in the capital Hanoi were ready for protests on Sunday.
Plainclothes security forces were out in force, blanketing much of the city centre and keeping a close eye on any crowds that might be gathering, an AFP reporter on the scene said.
Throughout the morning around 30 activists were swiftly bundled onto waiting buses and cars by security forces after they gathered to hold a protest near the city's famous Hoan Kiem lake, a common spot for demonstrations.
Some chanted "Down with China invasion!" as they were led away to detention.
Later in the day a group of nine activists held a brief rally outside the Philippines embassy. One held aloft a banner that read: "Thank you Philippines. You have a brave government."
The group dispersed on motorbike before security forces arrived.
Activists posted pictures on social media of similar flashmob rallies in southern Ho Chi Minh City with protesters riding around the city on motorbikes holding banners criticising China.
Beijing lays claim to virtually all of the South China Sea, putting it at odds with regional neighbours the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, which also have partial claims.
China boycotted the PCA hearings, saying the court had no jurisdiction, and has reacted furiously, vowing to ignore the ruling and arguing it misinterprets international law.
Vietnam and China frequently trade diplomatic barbs over the disputed Paracel island chain and waters in the South China Sea.
China has encouraged patriotic citizens to visit the contested Paracels, which are known as Xisha in Chinese.
Such acts have deepened already simmering anti-Chinese sentiment in Vietnam while domestic critics accuse Hanoi of being too meek towards its giant northern neighbour.
At least three Chinese nationals were killed in 2014 when rioting broke out in Vietnam after Beijing sent an oil rig into contested waters.

​http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3694090/Vietnam-detains-activists-South-China-Sea-ruling.html

To the Editor:

“South China Sea and the Rule of Law” (editorial, July 13), about China and the South China Sea arbitration, lacks only one important point. Surprisingly, you don’t mention that the United States, while urging all Asian states to respect the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea dispute-resolution institutions, has itself shamefully failed to ratify Unclos, something China did 20 years ago.
This puts us in the position of “do as we say, not as we do,” insulating us from similar challenges and denying us the opportunity to begin similar challenges.

It’s like a swimming coach who exhorts the swimmers but dares not wet his own feet!
​
JEROME A. COHEN
New York
The writer is a professor and director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, New York University School of Law.

By JANE PERLEZ JULY 12, 2016

BEIJING — An international tribunal in The Hague delivered a sweeping rebuke on Tuesday of China’s behavior in the South China Sea, including its construction of artificial islands, and found that its expansive claim to sovereignty over the waters had no legal basis.

The landmark case, brought by the Philippines, was seen as an important crossroads in China’s rise as a global power and in its rivalry with the United States, and it could force Beijing to reconsider its assertive tactics in the region or risk being labeled an international outlaw. It was the first time the Chinese government had been summoned before the international justice system.
In its most significant finding, the tribunal rejected China’s argument that it enjoys historic rights over most of the South China Sea. That could give the governments of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam more leverage in their own maritime disputes with Beijing.

The tribunal also said that China had violated international law by causing “irreparable harm” to the marine environment, endangering Philippine ships and interfering with Philippine fishing and oil exploration.

“It’s an overwhelming victory. We won on every significant point,” said the Philippines’ chief counsel in the case, Paul S. Reichler.

But while the decision is legally binding, there is no mechanism for enforcing it, and China, which refused to participate in the tribunal’s proceedings, reiterated on Tuesday that it would not abide by it.
Speaking at a meeting with European leaders, President Xi Jinping was defiant, reasserting China’s claim to sovereignty over the South China Sea “since ancient times,” the state-run People’s Daily reported. His remarks echoed a statement from the Foreign Ministry. The tribunal’s decision “is invalid and has no binding force,” the ministry said. “China does not accept or recognize it.”

The foreign secretary of the Philippines, Perfecto Yasay Jr., welcomed the ruling as “significant” and called on “all those concerned to exercise restraint and sobriety.”

The five judges and legal experts on the tribunal ruled unanimously, and the decision was so heavily in favor of the Philippines that there were fears about how the Chinese leadership would react. Many in the region worry that Beijing will accelerate its efforts to assert control over the South China Sea, which includes vital trade routes and fishing waters as well as possible oil and mineral deposits.

“Xi Jinping has lost face here, and it will be difficult for China to do nothing,” said Bonnie S. Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I expect a very tough reaction from China, since it has lost on almost every point. There is virtually nothing that it has won.”

The Philippines filed its case in 2013, after China seized a reef over which both countries claim sovereignty. There has been speculation that Beijing might respond to the decision by building an artificial island at the reef, Scarborough Shoal, a move that could set off a conflict with the Philippines and its treaty ally, the United States.

The State Department spokesman, John Kirby, said Washington expected China to comply with the ruling. “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,” he said.

The main issue before the panel was the legality of China’s claim to waters within a “nine-dash line” that appears on official Chinese maps and encircles as much as 90 percent of the South China Sea, an area the size of Mexico. The Philippines had asked the tribunal to find the claim to be in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which both China and the Philippines have ratified.
In its decision, the tribunal said any historic rights to the sea that China had previously enjoyed “were extinguished” by the treaty, which lays out rules for drawing zones of control over the world’s oceans based on distances to coastlines. The panel added that while China had used islands in the sea in the past, it had never exercised exclusive authority over the waters.

The panel also concluded that several disputed rocks and reefs in the South China Sea were too small for China to claim control of economic activities in the waters around them. As a result, it found, China was engaged in unlawful behavior in Philippine waters, including activities that had aggravated the dispute.

The tribunal cited China’s construction of a large artificial island on an atoll known as Mischief Reef. China has built a military airstrip, naval berths and sports fields on the island, but the tribunal ruled that it was in Philippine waters.

The judges also said that Beijing had violated international law by causing “severe harm to the coral reef environment” and by failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from harvesting endangered sea turtles and other species “on a substantial scale.”

In an early indication of the regional response, Vietnam — which has fraternal Communist ties to China but also significant territorial disputes with it, including over oil exploration rights — quickly issued a statement endorsing the tribunal’s decision.

China has argued that the tribunal had no jurisdiction in the case. Because the sovereignty of reefs and islands in the sea is disputed, Beijing asserted, the tribunal could not decide on competing claims to the surrounding waters. The treaty covers only maritime disputes, not land disputes.

In a tough speech in Washington last week, a former senior Chinese official, Dai Bingguo, said that the findings would amount to no more than “waste paper” and that China would not back down from its activities in the South China Sea even in the face of a fleet of American aircraft carriers.

But with the geopolitical stakes high, Mr. Dai also counseled moderation, saying that the situation in the South China Sea “must cool down.”

The issue could have ramifications for domestic politics in China. Mr. Xi has made defense of maritime claims a central part of the governing Communist Party’s narrative that it has restored the nation to global greatness after long periods of humiliation by bigger powers. Any challenge to that narrative is seen in Beijing as a challenge to the party’s rule.

On Wednesday morning, an escalating propaganda campaign in China against the tribunal reached a new pitch, with all the major news outlets condemning the decision and trumpeting China’s refusal to be back down.

“We do not claim an inch of land that does not belong to us, but we won’t give up any patch that is ours,” said a front-page editorial in The People’s Daily, which ridiculed the tribunal as a “lackey of some outside forces” that would be remembered as a “laughingstock in human history.”

Some Chinese commentators have said in recent days that the leadership may respond with immediate military maneuvers in the South China Sea. “Whether it will be significant or large scale I cannot say,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.
China is hosting the Group of 20 summit meeting in September, a major international forum that it hopes will proceed without the distraction of conflict. But Mr. Shi said he was not sure the government had “that kind of patience” to wait until after the gathering before taking some sort of action.

In a surprising opinion article on the India Today website over the weekend, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, Shen Dingli, wrote that Beijing needed to “revise its stance” and “employ a more effective approach” that maintained China’s “long-held ‘smiling’ image.”
The new president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has signaled that he will be more accommodating toward China than was his predecessor, Benigno S. Aquino III.

The case before the tribunal was filed at the initiative of Mr. Aquino, whose term ended June 30. Soon after the case was filed, China began building artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago, much of which is claimed by the Philippines, in a move that many saw as a demonstration of contempt for the international court system.

Experts in international law said that negotiations could be the most positive outcome of the case.
In 1986, some noted, the United States ignored a ruling from theInternational Court of Justice that declared its mining of the harbors of Nicaragua to be illegal. Washington had not ratified the Convention on the Law of the Sea, and it still has not.

But the ruling 30 years ago by the judges in The Hague emboldened congressional critics to cut funds for the Reagan administration’s campaign against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and it galvanized countries in Central America to seek a settlement of the conflict.

China is not expected to vacate or dismantle the artificial islands it has built. That makes the legal arguments important, analysts said. “ “The tribunal rulings will move the goal posts towards the Philippines and the smaller countries,” said Markus Gehring, a lecturer in law at Cambridge University.
In Manila, the former foreign secretary, Albert F. del Rosario, who brought the case after years of failed negotiations with China, said the path was now open for a lasting settlement of disputes in the South China Sea.

“The award provides a basis to further talks and cooperation to encompass all parties, including China,” he said.
​
Correction: August 11, 2016 
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Indonesia. Although its “exclusive economic zone” overlaps with China’s nine-dash line, it does not in fact have any territorial claims on the South China Sea.
 

NYT Editorial Board JULY 12, 2016
How China reacts to the sweeping legal defeat over its claims to the South China Sea will tell the world a lot about its approach to international law, the use — measured or otherwise — of its enormous power, and its global ambitions. So far, the signs are troubling. Beijing has defiantly rejected an international arbitration court’s jurisdiction over a case brought by the Philippines and insisted it will not accept Tuesday’s pathbreaking judgment.

The unanimous ruling, by a five-judge tribunal in The Hague, was more favorable toward the Philippines and broader in scope than experts had predicted. It said that under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China had no legal basis to claim historic rights over most of the waterway, which is rich in resources and carries $5 trillion in annual trade.

The panel also faulted China for its aggressive attempts to establish sovereignty by shipping tons of dirt to transform small reefs and rocks into artificial islands with airstrips and other military structures. China’s neighbors fear that it intends to use these outposts to restrict navigation and the rights of others to fish and explore for oil and gas.

The Philippines filed the case in 2013 after China took control of a reef known as Scarborough Shoal. The case accused Beijing of interfering with fishing, endangering ships and failing to protect marine life. Manila also asked the tribunal to reject China’s claims to sovereignty within a so-called nine-dash line that encompasses much of the South China Sea and appears on official Chinese maps.

The judges ruled for the Philippines on most claims in its complaint: China had indeed violated international law by causing “irreparable harm” to the marine environment, endangering ships and interfering with Philippine fishing and oil exploration. Further, China had illegally built an artificial island on Mischief Reef, complete with a military airstrip, in waters belonging to the Philippines.

The Law of the Sea treaty sets rules for establishing zones of control over the oceans based on distances to coastlines. In addition to China and the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia and Taiwan all claim parts of the South China Sea. The tribunal is authorized to deal with maritime disputes, not the underlying land claims to the islands, reefs and rocks that are also contested. The decision is the first international ruling on the disputed maritime issues in the South China Sea.
There are serious concerns about what will happen next. The tribunal has no authority to enforce its ruling, and China, which boycotted the legal process, threatens to use force to protect the maritime interests the court has now declared illegal.

What this means in practice is not clear. Given China’s stake in peaceful trade with the rest of the world, it would be foolish for President Xi Jinping to take provocative actions that could inflame regional tensions and conceivably lead to a military confrontation with its neighbors or the United States. Retaliatory measures — further island-building at Scarborough Shoal, for instance, or declaring an air defense zone over large portions of the South China Sea — would be risky.

In fact, the ruling offers a fresh opportunity to address maritime disputes in a peaceful manner. China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai,condemned Tuesday’s ruling but said Beijing remains open to negotiations. Nations in the region have often gone wobbly in the face of pressure from Beijing. At this critical moment, despite competing interests of their own, they need to join the Philippines in endorsing the tribunal decision and then proceed, if necessary, with their own arbitration cases.

The United States, which is neutral on the various claims, can help ensure a peaceful, lawful path forward. The Obama administration has said that disputes should be resolved according to international law, a position it now reaffirms. It has built closer security relations with Asian nations and responded to China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea with increased naval patrols. This combination of diplomacy and pressure is sound, but the hard part is getting the balance right.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/opinion/testing-the-rule-of-law-in-the-south-china-sea.html

Tensions in troubled waters see more and more attacks and the undermining of precarious livelihoods. 
In early March, 59-year-old Trần Sinh and his crew were retrieving fishing nets when a Chinese coast guard boat steamed rapidly toward his boat.
When very near to his wooden craft, Sinh later told a journalist, men in the much larger steel-hulled vessel shouted something in Chinese, which he didn’t understand. Then, in stilted Vietnamese, a Chinese sailor screamed: “these waters belong to China; you and all Vietnamese boats must leave immediately.”
As Sinh and his crew accelerated their efforts to bring in their nets, Chinese sailors opened fired, riddling his vessel with bullets and injuring one of his men. Sinh then throttled his boat’s engine to leave as speedily as possible. Hours later, he and his crew reached port in his badly damaged boat.
Sinh, like thousands of other Vietnamese fishermen, is fighting for his livelihood against China, which claims waters that he and his village have fished for generations. This tragic fight is not well known beyond Vietnam.
Sinh’s boat was within Vietnam’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the distance allowed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. According to over 200 Vietnamese newspaper articles and other reports I have read about the fishermen’s plight, virtually all Vietnamese fishing boats attacked by Chinese since 2001 were within this zone; often they were less than 50 nautical miles from Vietnam’s shoreline. China’s government, however, claims exclusive rights to the whole area, about 80 per cent of the South China Sea. Ignoring the EEZs of Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations, Beijing officials insist China’s claim is indisputable.
“It is totally absurd,” exclaimed fisherman Tiêu Việt Là, “to say that we Vietnamese are violating Chinese territorial waters. We are fishing in waters belonging to Vietnam, captured and occupied by Chinese!” He said this to a reporter in July 2010, a few months after Chinese had abducted him and his boat for the fourth time since 2007, each instance costing him dearly before being released.
“Even though Chinese boats pounce on us, causing much hardship,” fisherman Phạm Văn Dũng of Phu Yến province told another journalist in May 2011, “I won’t abandon those fishing areas. The waters [near Paracel Islands] belong to my country, and I must make a living.”
Mại Phụng Lưu, a fisherman in Quảng Ngãi province, recounted that Chinese had seized him and his boat and crew “in Vietnam’s waters, waters where my grandfather fished, my father fished, and now I fish. Those waters are our history and our territory.”
As Vietnamese fishermen struggle to protect their livelihoods, their fishing grounds, and their country’s territory, Chinese steal their equipment, damage or sink their boats, abduct them, extort money, and beat them. Chinese have even killed several Vietnamese fishermen. In January 2005, Chinese vessels rained bullets on two fishing boats less than 20 nautical miles from Vietnam’s coastline, killing nine and gravely wounding seven Vietnamese. The attackers then held the survivors and the two boats until the fishermen’s families paid substantial sums of money
According to Vietnamese government figures, 7,045 fishermen on 1,186 boats were attacked by foreigners, mostly Chinese, between 2006 and March 2010. Comparable figures for years since are unavailable but are likely larger. Since 2010, China’s government has intensified efforts to enforce its claims. Between November 2015 and early April 2016, for instance, Chinese assaulted one-third of the fishing boats from just one village in Thừa Thiên Huế province. During 2015, Chinese attacked 20 per cent of the fishing boats in Lý Sơn, a community in Quảng Ngãi province.
Often the attackers are in Chinese coast guard and military vessels. Some attackers are in unmarked boats, which Vietnamese fishermen say are usually Chinese. In late November 2015, for instance, two unmarked boats with eight armed men, came close to a Vietnamese fishing boat near the Spratly Islands and started shooting, killing on the spot 42-year-old fisherman Trương Đình Bảy. The two vessels and the method of attack used, said the surviving fishermen, were like others employed by Chinese against Vietnamese.
Until about 2011, Chinese frequently abducted Vietnamese boats and crew, taking anything of value and beating and starving the fishermen until their relatives paid money far beyond their means, forcing families to sell their homes and resort to other drastic measures. More common recently, armed Chinese board fishermen’s boats; rob crew members; strip or destroy the boat’s navigational instruments and other equipment; take or dump its catch; and confiscate much of its petrol and fresh water, leaving only enough for the crew and boats to limp back to port. Sometimes Chinese vessels ram, even sink, Vietnamese fishing boats leaving the fishermen floundering in the ocean.
Fishermen want the Vietnamese coast guard and navy to protect them against the Chinese, but officials say they lack sufficient ships and other resources. Government offices frequently assist fishermen after Chinese have attacked and released them. And Vietnamese authorities regularly object to their Chinese counterparts and reiterate that the fishermen are using waters belonging to Vietnam, not China.
Chinese authorities, however, continue to disagree and to attack Vietnamese fishing boats and crews.
Benedict J Tria Kerkvliet is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University and Graduate Faculty Member at the University of Hawai’i.