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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

#5

Post by toyg »

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 struggle to justify any significant intervention abroad for another generation, let alone against a nuclear superpower. No, on the military side China is laughing all the way to the naval base on artificial reef.

The question is, what exactly do they think to gain from this aggressive expansionist activity? Hopefully it's just strategic military positioning for the long run. If it's anything they think they can directly leverage (like imposing controls or tariffs on ships going through the area), then they risk a backlash on their commercial interests.

There are probably competing forces inside PRC hierarchies competing over this particular policy. It might well be that sanity will eventually prevail. Launching WW3 over a bunch of rocks just to stick it to your boss, seems a bit too much even for the average military nutcase.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#6

Post by adventured »

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 annex territory ala Russia with Ukraine (except this is dramatically larger), then it will stick. An easy example would be to throw China back out of the WTO, dump their currency / refuse to promote it any higher as a reserve, actually enforce consequences on their dumping practices and other economic misdeeds, and so on.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#7

Post by yardie »

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?

The chinese are getting better at soft power. This is really about oil and natural resources in the South China Sea. A direct confrontation wouldn't be acceptable and it would be costly. If anything I believe they'll put financial and political incentives and convince them to sell the islands.

Re: Philippines Wins South China Sea Case Against China

#9

Post by adventured »

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…

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 in debt in that time). Their transition over to a service economy is not going to go well. They'll need trillions of dollars in new capital to continue to keep their economy afloat, mostly consisting of trillions of dollars in new debt (far over burdening an already hyper indebted economy). And they'll need that much debt in just the next year. They can't manage any of that in an economic vacuum. There are now countless economic levers to use against China, most of their economy is dependent on external consumption and extremely high levels of exports. Their integration with the global economy has made them dependent in that way. Other Southeast Asian nations are being set up as counters to China manufacturing wise, which has already begun to rip the heart out of China's export economy, leading to their own versions of the US rust belt.

If the other global powers decide China has taken this dispute too far, it will be very easy to punish them with a unified front. Numerous of their industries are violating WTO rules governing dumping for example, the first start would be to finally take action against China for that. Their desire - need - to see their currency continue to gain reserve expansion, could be hampered very easily. There are a dozen other good economic ways the rest of the world can make China's territory annexation painful.

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