China joins US in flouting international law

In the week since The Hague ruled against China in a long-awaited arbitration case on the territorial dispute with the Philippines in the South China Sea, virtually no facts have changed on the ground. As Beijing has announced another round of military exercises in the area - a day after buzzing a nuclear-capable H-6 bomber past the key islet in the case, Scarborough Shoal (itself after again turning away Filipino fishing boats from adjacent waters) - it looks like business as usual.

China-bashers the world over, but especially neocon imperialists here in the US, are likely to be beside themselves in the coming weeks and months, as the legal ruling recedes into the background and fades into virtual irrelevance. Any bilateral negotiations between Beijing and Manila concerning the actual situation within the latter's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) are likely to be conducted in strict secrecy, even as a continuous parade of PLAN and US Navy exercises and "freedom of navigation" patrols, respectively, rolls on by around the artificial Chinese islets.

In the end, probably the biggest achievement of the Philippines' arbitration case - doubtless inspired (at least in the minds of some) by a belief that Washington would come to its old ally's defense if push came to shove - will be a reaffirmation of an age-old truth: so-called "rule of law" has never not been, in reality, a naked "rule of the gun" (or "rule of the sword").

Laws and regulations are utterly meaningless without the means to enforce them: in the real world we inhabit, "moral" victory just doesn't cut it - no imperfect human individual or society can presume to enjoy any authority whatsoever to enforce the morality of another sovereign human individual or society. It would be one thing if the Philippines - not to mention the US - were perfectly content with the symbolic ruling and dispassionately refrained from expecting it to impact the situation on the ground; at least some elements of the Manila and Washington establishments, however, were most definitely hoping for a good deal more. Well, welcome to the real world.

True, China has effectively left the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) with its flagrant disregard of The Hague's ruling. But that puts it in good company with another big, heavily armed power which has never even bothered to sign it in the first place: the US!

Of course, Washington's apologists can protest all they want that the US has always abided by UNCLOS even if it hasn't signed it; just like they can continue to protest that invading Iraq, overthrowing Libya, and sponsoring a whole host of coups of non-compliant client states for more than a century were actually all in accordance with "international law."

Perhaps China's really made it to the bigs now: it can now indulge a bit in the kind of "rules don't apply to me" perks that can only be the exclusive domain of the most dominant empires - read: Uncle Sam.