(Hobe, Holger Behr/Public domain via commons)
Steve Mollman, Quartz: “To deal with dogs, we should use a stick”—Chinese cheer military drills in the disputed South China Sea
China will conduct military drills in the contested South China Sea this week, ratcheting up tensions ahead of a tribunal ruling expected to challenge its claims to most of the strategically important sea. China’s territorial claims overlap in parts with those of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan in an area that holds vast energy and marine resources and through which more than $5 trillion in trade passes every year.
Beijing announced the drills yesterday (July 3) in a brief online statement (link in Chinese), saying the exercises will last from Tuesday until July 11—the day before the ruling by the United Nations-backed tribunal in The Hague. The statement gave geographic coordinates of the drills, which will cover an area running east of China’s Hainan Island down to and including the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by both China and Vietnam. It also said the area will be off limits to other ships.
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WNU Editor: And I thought Donald Trump's rhetoric is sometimes over the top. This type of language from China is going to make it impossible (if not already) for any Chinese leader (from the present to the future) to make any accommodation on the South China Sea boundary dispute. The "lost of face" would be huge, and it will certainly end any Chinese political career.
1 comment:
Someone very foolishly chose to take this to a UN Tribunal at this time. If China loses, it only encourages them to double down more an the tribunal has no power to actually enforce anything. Furthermore should China choose they can intimidate the Tribunal to rule as they choose.
Without anyway to enforce a ruling, no way to ensure the integrity of a ruling, and in this environment such a tribunal only makes matters worse. Whoever brought this (The Philippines ) the leadership clearly wasn't thinking properly.
While Mr. Trump's rhetoric is over the top at times, he is generally 100% correct in what he points out. The rhetoric of the Chinese leadership seems much more heated. The reaction of much the world media seems to be ignore, play down, or even praise ant-American rhetoric while viciously attacking America and it's leadership especially those who don't toe the line they want. As such, the need to "save face" is not limited to just China.
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