CHINA said even before a UN tribunal had delivered its ruling on the ownership of the Scarborough Reef off the coast of the Philippines, that it had no intention of accepting it. This would have been very embarrassing had the judges found in China's favor. But Beijing knew its claims could not stand up. So when this week the tribunal ruled that Beijing had no claim to the reef, the reaction of the Chinese, who have turned the reef into an artificial island complete with airstrip and military facilities, was no surprise. China lays an historic claim to much of the China Sea, to reefs and rocks several hundred miles away from its coast line. These assertions have put it in conflict not just with Manila but with Vietnam and Malaysia. The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration has ruled that under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, (UNCLOS) China has violated the sovereign rights of the Philippines in seizing the Scarborough Reef. The judgment has taken three years since the Philippines first lodged its case. While the court's ruling is legally binding, it has no powers to enforce any of its findings. Those rest with the UN Security Council of which China of course is a member and holds a veto. Therefore what happens next moves this dispute into uncharted political waters. China is a signatory to UNCLOS. Yet a senior Chinese official said in Washington last week that whatever judgment the court delivered would be "just a piece of paper". It has to be wondered what Beijing's reaction would have been if it had actually won the Hague case and then the Philippines and their US allies said the same thing. But then this is not about adherence to legal norms and treaty obligations. Rather it is everything to do with the naked projection of military power that has come about under Chinese president Xi Jinping. In contesting the territorial claims of its small neighbors, the Chinese leader knows that he is also challenging the military hegemony of the United States in the Pacific. In 1962, Washington was prepared to take the world to the brink of nuclear war when Russia sought to set up nuclear weapons in Cuba, 144 kilometers from the Florida coast. These days, it would no more welcome the appearance of Chinese warships and warplanes regularly operating close to the US coast. There may or may not be great quantities of oil and gas beneath the disputed China Sea. There are however abundant fish stocks which are important to the Philippines, Vietnamese and Malaysian economies. But this dangerous dispute is far more about military power. Zi believes that he can successfully bluff Washington militarily over his occupation of the Scarborough Reef, the Paracels and the Spratlys. He does not think the US will be prepared to fight over about them. He must be very sure of himself. To be forced to relinquish the bases established on these reefs would be a catastrophic loss of face which could ruin him politically. Maybe reckons that for all their bluster and protest, the Americans will do precisely nothing. After all, is not this exactly what has happened in the occupied West Bank where just like China, Zionists settlers have built "facts on the ground".
