INTERNATIONAL: The UNCLOS dispute
It has emerged as a strategic forum that is instrumental in drawing up the security infrastructure of the region while there is so much importance attached to the institution that it is not only attended by experts and officials of the regional countries, the important countries of the world who have a lot of allies and stakes.
The Shangri-La dialogue has countries like the United States of America, France, Australia and others sending their strategic experts on security attending this vital dialogue.
The IISS has now become the main platform for assessing, discussing and trying to find solutions that have lately assumed importance because of the South China Seas imbroglio.
The bottom-line of the activities are engaging the most powerful nations with the clamor for a world order based on rules gathering momentum from the smaller states who cannot hope to match the military might of countries like USA and China. The smaller the country, the higher is the pitch for the restorations of their rights.
But, since January 2016, there is a letup in this clamor once one of the countries with a real grievance decided to act, the din created by these smaller players has almost died down and has been converted to one of waiting and watching.
Finally, it is out in the open; one country has decided that enough is enough, let someone stand up and assess the international scenario to come up with a solution to the injustice that is allegedly being perpetrated by a stronger adversary in total violation of the rights and conventions applicable to international law.
The lines of contention
The nine-dash line was made up of nine segments in the South China Sea and, at various times also referred to as the10 Dash Line or the 11 Dash line; it has become the bone of contention that has led to the infamous South China Sea dispute.
This line is actually the line of demarcation which was used by ROC, Taiwan AT ONE TIME and is now also claimed by the PRC, Beijing and comprises many islands, shoals and other areas that are part of the reclamation of atolls and deserted islands that have given rise to a standoff in the South China Sea; this land reclamation area id also known as the Great Wall of Sand and includes Spratly Islands, Pratas Islands, the Scarborough Shoal and the Macclesfield Bank among others.
A map depicting the Eleven dash line was prepared by the Chinese in 1947 but Chinese Premier Zhou En Lai had two of the dashes that were on the Gulf of Tonkin removed from the map; thus, only nine remained with another tenth one added to project it into the East China Sea.
There was again another change in the form of this tenth dash which was lying towards the East of Taiwan in 2013 and the claim for sovereignty was presented only in 2015 even though it was different from the claim that was made public in 1947.
At the conclusion of the 2nd World war, the Pottsdam declaration and the Tokyo agreement were drawn up after the Japanese surrender and Pratas, Paracels and Spratly Islands were re-claimed by the Taiwanese.
What followed was a spate of claims with the People’s Republic of China even sending ships to assert control on these Islands in late 1946; by 1951, when the San Francisco Conference was being signed the Vietnamese, the Taiwanese, the Republic of China and the Philippines had all made claims to these and other Islands.
The nine-dash line which was a modification of the original eleven-dash line was published publically by the Chinese republic map of 1947 which was based on the 1935 map prepared by the Land and Waters Inspection Committee of PRC; Zhou En Lai’s alterations took place in 1949 but the nine Dash Line remains the basis for claims by both Taiwan and Beijing who are cooperating in their claims over Spratly Islands since the areas under claim are the same.
Thus, the Taiwanese laid their claim to the whole of the South China Sea, the archipelagos and subsoil while stoutly denying any claims by Malaysia and the Philippines in July 1999.
While China stakes its claim on the basis of the nine-dash line, it is not coming forward to show how the dashes would be connected; it is just using its military might to steamroll the smaller countries that are trying to get their legitimate claims addressed.
This claim was vociferously contested by Vietnam, Brunei, The Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia when the Chinese submitted it to the United nations in 2009; a spate of official protests by the said countries even though Indonesia did not put forth any claim.
But, that was not the end of it; the Chinese amended the map once again and put it up with a Ten-Dash Line in 2013, the only difference being that this 10th additional line was not in the South China Sea; it was in the East China Sea south of Taiwan.
The litigation
The Philippines, not satisfied with the ground situation that was contrary to its traditional claims which were being denied by China, the formidable regional giant, decided to go all out to seek justice from the United Nations.
The intimation of this intention to go in for international intervention was conveyed to the People’s Republic of China in January 2016; thus, Philippines had placed China on notice that it was approaching the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
The process is due to go ahead in ITLOS, an international tribunal under that convention,
The Filipinos could not raise the matter in the International Court of Justice at The Hague, because any dispute that is dealt by the World Court requires the consent of both parties to the dispute. And, the world knows that China is not likely to do that anytime soon.
In fact, China has openly declared that it does not recognize the current proceedings. But, while everyone is just making claims on some parts of the oceans including those occupied by China, a loose rearrangement of the territories is going on while the Chinese juggernaut powers on claiming, building and strengthening islets and converting them to fortified military establishments. The weaker entities like the Philippines have no other recourse but to move shoulder-to- shoulder with the superpower USA and other powers like Australia.
As far as actual skirmishes and clashes are concerned they are quite rare and isolated since the infrastructure created on these disputed islands by any one country, is known by the other side and avoided.
Even U.S. troops and Navy as well as their Chinese counterparts have an unwritten agreement that says “HANDS OFF each other” except under extreme circumstances.
But, the deterrence continues to hold sway from both sides. The main factor that is responsible to keep down the heat is the economic inter-dependence that all the players have various economic fingers in each other’s pie; these relations are also a big deterrent to outright war directly or indirectly.
So, the keep claiming, accusing, skirmishing and disputing without escalating any confrontation to avoid reaching the point of no return.
Umrao Singh Umraoz.wordpress.com
Written for: Lars-Magnus Carlsson www.thephilippinepride.com
