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Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

theguardian.com

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Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#11

Post by vetinari »

toyg wrote: post #5
kiba wrote: post #3

I am no geopolitical expert, but the Chinese seemed to be playing with fire. At which point a war will erupt in the South China Sea, especially when those nations won't take it anymore?

Which nations? Vietnam, who lost two conflicts with China already, when China was even poorer and weaker than it is now? Or the Philippines, who can barely keep their own state together as it is? Maybe Malaysia, a country constantly rocked by internal dissent because of huge economic inequality? Singapore? The only nation who might decide they "won't take it anymore" is the United States; but post-Iraq, the US will s…

Why downvoting this guy? He is somewhat right.

And it is "just" strategic military positioning - to protect the new silk road naval routes. The bases are going to be there so China's naval trade routes cannot be potentially blocked by a hostile naval power.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#12

Post by chvid »

toyg wrote: post #5
kiba wrote: post #3

I am no geopolitical expert, but the Chinese seemed to be playing with fire. At which point a war will erupt in the South China Sea, especially when those nations won't take it anymore?

Which nations? Vietnam, who lost two conflicts with China already, when China was even poorer and weaker than it is now? Or the Philippines, who can barely keep their own state together as it is? Maybe Malaysia, a country constantly rocked by internal dissent because of huge economic inequality? Singapore? The only nation who might decide they "won't take it anymore" is the United States; but post-Iraq, the US will s…

I don't know why you are being down voted. Your assessment is largely correct.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#13

Post by jpmoral »

adventured wrote: post #6
douche wrote: post #2

This resolution really only has teeth so far as the US Navy is ready and able to enforce it.

The huge benefit to this ruling is precedent and credibility. Laying down a trail of rulings against China around the globe, that will facilitate cohesive economic sanctions against them if they attempt to enforce their bogus claims to the waters. One country attempting to sanction China would fail, and China would and could easily retaliate. If most of the developed world signs on to sanctions for their attempts to…

They are already enforcing their bogus claims.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#14

Post by ourmandave »

douche wrote: post #2

This resolution really only has teeth so far as the US Navy is ready and able to enforce it.

That's a problem. We don't usually intervene directly against other nuclear armed nations. It's all done through proxies. Who is going to be our proxy navy?

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#15

Post by toyg »

adventured wrote: post #9
toyg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which nations? Vietnam, who lost two conflicts with China already, when China was even poorer and weaker than it is now? Or the Philippines, who can barely keep their own state together as it is? Maybe Malaysia, a country constantly rocked by internal dissent because of huge economic inequality? Singapore? The only nation who might decide they "won't take it anymore" is the United States; but post-Iraq, the US will s…

Your premise is entirely backwards. The response is almost universally that this can only be enforced militarily. That's not accurate. China's economy is their achilles heel, not their military. China's economy is extremely fragile right now, and it's going to remain so. Growth will continue to trend toward zero in real terms, as all the easy growth ended nearly a decade ago (thus they've taken on ~$40-$50 trillion i…

I've said as much when mentioning the risk to their commercial interests, I don't disagree. However, the facts on the ground is that China invested a ton of money on building a military facility on artificial sand right there. You don't do that unless you expect to be there for the long run. Even if they complied with this sort of ruling and recognised someone else's sovereignty, they would likely not leave that base; chances are that they would get a Guantanamo-style agreement, against which there is little anyone can do beyond taking direct military action.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#16

Post by netheril96 »

Well, there is a precedent Nicaragua v. United States where the United States just blatantly ignores the international court's ruling against it, and vetoes any attempt of enforcement by the Security Council. China is also a permanent member, so they will do just the same.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#17

Post by joristers »

...China, which has displayed a willingness to negotiate in many such situations. In just over 60 years, China has gone from 23 land disputes down to just six. In the majority of its settlements, China accepted less than one-half of the territory it originally claimed. [1]

1. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#18

Post by chvid »

vetinari wrote: post #11
toyg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which nations? Vietnam, who lost two conflicts with China already, when China was even poorer and weaker than it is now? Or the Philippines, who can barely keep their own state together as it is? Maybe Malaysia, a country constantly rocked by internal dissent because of huge economic inequality? Singapore? The only nation who might decide they "won't take it anymore" is the United States; but post-Iraq, the US will s…

Why downvoting this guy? He is somewhat right. And it is "just" strategic military positioning - to protect the new silk road naval routes. The bases are going to be there so China's naval trade routes cannot be potentially blocked by a hostile naval power.

Exactly.

To exaggerate things a bit: This is proxy conflict with USA.

The South China sea today is under US Navy dominance. Within a decade or so that will no longer be the case.

Simply because USA cannot afford an arms race with China.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#19

Post by adventured »

chvid wrote: post #10

Hardly any surprise. A tiny piece in the massive chess game that is China's rising military dominance and the west's declining ditto. This will play out over decades and is at its heart driven by a Chinese economy that expands faster the west's.

China's economy isn't expanding faster than the West's. It was.

China's economy is hardly growing at all, and is no longer growing organically. They require extremely vast amounts of new debt to continue growing at just a few percent per year. That's a scenario they can't maintain going forward.

The US economy by itself is expanding as much as China in dollar GDP terms, and is doing so without taking on the kind of debt that China is. Per dollar of debt taken on, the US is getting two to three times as much GDP growth as what China is. China's economy is growing at 2% to 3% currently; with the US economy ~65% larger it can grow quite a bit slower and still outpace China.

$18 trillion * 2% = $360 billion

$11 trillion * 3% = $330 billion

China is unlikely to ever be the extremely fast growth economy it previously was. All the easy economic growth is long since over. And this is without discussing the inevitability that China will run into regular recessions like all other economies do once their growth slows down to normal levels (and ignoring that China is also likely to face far harsher consequences with economic slowdowns given their system of government; which keeps the Chinese leaders up at night). For example they've been in an industrial recession for at least a year now, and their service sector has barely shown any growth. There's no reason to believe their manufacturing will kick back into boom mode ever again, especially with other Asian competitors eroding that base. Their service economy was supposed to take over, and so far it's doing nothing but flailing.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#20

Post by vlehto »

chvid wrote: post #18
vetinari wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why downvoting this guy? He is somewhat right. And it is "just" strategic military positioning - to protect the new silk road naval routes. The bases are going to be there so China's naval trade routes cannot be potentially blocked by a hostile naval power.

Exactly. To exaggerate things a bit: This is proxy conflict with USA. The South China sea today is under US Navy dominance. Within a decade or so that will no longer be the case. Simply because USA cannot afford an arms race with China.

I'm expecting anti-tank weaponry being sent to Myanmar by U.S.

The bay of Bengal can't be shut down like china seas.

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