In this reply to Professor Graham Allison, the writer argues that it is in the interest of both small states and great powers to abide by international law.

Professor Graham Allison is a brilliant scholar. He is currently the director of the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Harvard University. He had served previously as the dean of the Kennedy School. On July 16, this newspaper published an article by him entitled "Heresy to say great powers don't bow to international courts?"

He concluded that: "It is hard to disagree with the realists' claims that the Law of the Sea tribunals, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are only for small powers. Great powers do not recognise the jurisdiction of these courts - except in particular cases where they believe it is in their interest to do so."

Prof Allison also quoted, with approval, Thucydides' summary of the Melian mantra - "The strong do as they will; the weak suffer as they must…"

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Synopsis

China has chosen not to take part in the arbitral tribunal brought against it by the Philippines. Hence, now that the tribunal has issued its ruling, China should stay away from commenting on the case and instead offer concrete plans for functional cooperation in the South China Sea.

Commentary

AFTER THREE years, the international arbitration that the Philippines brought against China on issues relating to the South China Sea dispute between them came to a formal end on 12 July 2016. The findings of the arbitral tribunal did not come as a surprise.

The Chinese government has rejected the tribunal’s finding, having exercised its right allowed in public international law not to participate in the tribunal. Chinese and/or non-Chinese citizens can take issue with the wisdom or the lack of it behind that decision. Regardless, a page has been established in history. Meanwhile, it is upon us to make use of moments of history.

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‘An overwhelming victory’ is how Paul Reichler, lead counsel of the Philippines, describes the Award issued by Permanent Court of Arbitration Tribunal in the case of Philippines v. China concerning the South China Sea (SCS).  The Tribunal unanimously granted all but a handful of Manila’s claims, and in doing so laid down a significant number of rulings that will reshape the discourse over the SCS disputes in the years to come.

First and foremost, the Tribunal definitively characterised and then struck down the most expansive of all the various claims to the SCS: China’s historic rights claims, as represented by the ‘nine-dash line’ map. The Tribunal held that clearly, any and all historic rights claims to waters beyond the territorial sea were relinquished and abandoned by China when it signed and ratified UNCLOS and thereby agreed with the establishment of the EEZ and continental shelf regimes in favour of all coastal states.

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The South China Sea arbitration award is not just a victory for the Philippines over China; it is a victory for evidence over sentiment. I have spent the past five years digging through the competing versions of the region’s history. In the process, I have learned that China’s claims in the South China Sea were always more emotional than historical. They emerged from the sense of national violation during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and mixed misunderstandings about history with poor translations of foreign maps and an unbending sense of self-righteousness.

The problem for the region is that, despite the arbitration ruling, those misunderstandings and emotions will not easily go away. Far from it: Chinese schools are continuing to inculcate young minds with the same muddled views of the past, and the national media is reinforcing the message for adults. To those Chinese who care about the issue, the arbitration will appear as yet another episode in the story of national humiliation. If we could trust the Chinese leadership to allow the free flow of information and an open debate about history, we could hope for a new understanding to emerge. For the time being, that is about as likely as China dismantling its giant artificial islands.

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