Conflict in the South China Sea

July 14, 2016

Contingency Planning Memorandum Update

Author: Bonnie S. Glaser, Senior Advisor for Asia, Center for Strategic and International Studies

In April 2015, the author wrote an update to this memo to reflect recent developments in the South China Sea.  Read: http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/armed-clash-south-china-sea/p27883

Update :http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/conflict-south-china-sea/p36377

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Publisher Council on Foreign Relations Press Release Date April 2015

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea continue to be a source of tension and potential conflict between China and other countries in the region. Though the United States takes no position on sovereignty claims in the South China Sea—including those of its ally, the Philippines—it is deeply interested in maintaining maritime security, upholding freedom of navigation, and ensuring that disputes are settled peacefully. For these reasons, a 2012 Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Contingency Planning Memorandum, “Armed Clash in the South China Sea,” argued that the United States should help lower the risk of conflict in the region, including the potential for dangerous military incidents involving U.S. and Chinese military forces.

New Concerns

Beijing’s intention to exert greater control over the South China Sea appears undiminished. In 2012, China forcibly seized control of the previously unoccupied Scarborough Reef during a standoff with Philippine maritime vessels, despite agreeing to a mutual withdrawal brokered by Washington. China has seemingly been emboldened by this easy, cost-free conquest: it has since begun construction of artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago that will enable it to extend the range of the Chinese navy, air force, coast guard, and fishing fleets in just a few years. Once sufficient capabilities are in place for round-the-clock maritime and air presence over the South China Sea, Beijing is likely to declare an air defense identification zone (ADIZ), similar to the ADIZ it declared over the East China Sea in November 2013. The scale and pace of China’s dredging activity has alarmed rival claimants Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan.

The dispute between China and the Philippines over the Second Thomas Shoal deserves immediate attention. Since 1999, a small contingent of Philippine marines has been deployed on a vessel that Manila beached on the submerged reef. In 2014, Chinese coast guard ships attempted unsuccessfully to block delivery of food, water, and fresh troops to the military outpost. The condition of the beached ship is rapidly deteriorating and it is expected to slide into the sea in a matter of months unless it is reinforced. This situation could lead to another confrontation between Chinese and Philippine forces should Beijing decide to seize the shoal. The U.S.-Philippines mutual defense treaty could be invoked if, for example, a Philippine naval or coast guard vessel is attacked, a Philippine military aircraft is shot down, or members of the Philippine armed forces are injured.

A military clash between China and Vietnam is also a concern. In May 2014, China deployed a deep-sea oil rig in Vietnam’s two hundred–nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), leading to a seventy-three-day crisis in which Chinese and Vietnamese ships rammed each other repeatedly before the rig was withdrawn. Although Vietnam’s military capabilities are dwarfed by China’s, Hanoi is nevertheless determined to defend its maritime rights. Worries persist in Hanoi that Beijing could deploy the oil rig to contested waters again, risking military confrontation. Similar clashes could take place in the nine oil blocks along the coast of Vietnam, for which China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) invited foreign companies in 2012 to seek oil exploration bids, or near the Vietnamese-occupied Vanguard Bank.

In addition, the risk of a dangerous incident involving U.S. and Chinese forces within China’s EEZ remains a concern given the possibility of military escalation. Following several dangerous near-misses—notably in December 2013 involving a Chinese amphibious dock ship and a U.S. guided-missile cruiser and in August 2014 involving a Chinese fighter aircraft and a U.S. surveillance plane—the U.S. and Chinese militaries struck a groundbreaking deal on rules of behavior for safe military encounters between surface naval ships at sea. Such confidence-building measures may help reduce the potential for accidents in the future. However, individual commanders may still display aggressive behavior that could have dire consequences.

Policy Implications

U.S. interests in the South China Sea include freedom of navigation, unimpeded passage for commercial shipping, and peaceful resolution of territorial disputes according to international law. Failure to respond to Chinese coercion or use of force could damage U.S. credibility, not only in Southeast Asia, but also in Japan, where anxiety about intensified activity by Chinese military and paramilitary forces is growing. Conflict in the South China Sea would put at risk the more than $5 trillion in trade that passes through those strategic waters annually. Also at stake is the U.S. relationship with China, including Washington’s efforts to gain greater cooperation from Beijing on global issues such as combating terrorism, dealing with epidemics, confronting climate change, securing a deal on Iran’s nuclear program, and persuading North Korea to relinquish its nuclear weapons.

Recommendations

Although China may have moderated some of its intimidation tactics for now, it continues to seek greater control over the sea and airspace in the South China Sea. Moreover, various attempts to persuade China, along with the other claimants, to freeze destabilizing behavior such as land reclamation have not succeeded. Beijing continues to drag its feet on negotiating a binding code of conduct (CoC) with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and has rejected Manila’s attempt to resolve its territorial dispute through arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Halting Chinese land reclamation activities may not be possible, but the United States can press China to be transparent about its intentions and urge other nations to do the same. While remaining neutral on sovereignty disputes, the United States should encourage all parties to pursue their claims peacefully and in accordance with international law. The United States should also press China to accept constraints on its behavior in a CoC and dissuade China from taking actions that increase the risk of conflict. Several of the recommendations in CFR’s 2012 analysis of potential conflict in the South China Sea remain to be implemented; in particular, the United States should ratify UNCLOS. In addition, the United States should take the following steps:

•  In the absence of progress between China and ASEAN on a binding CoC to avert crises in the South China Sea, the United States should encourage ASEAN to develop its own draft CoC containing risk-reduction measures and a dispute-resolution mechanism. The United States should then work with ASEAN to convince Beijing to sign and implement it.
• The United States should continue to help the Philippines and Vietnam enhance their maritime policing and security capabilities, for example through better surveillance systems, so they can deter and respond to China entering the water and airspace in their EEZs with impunity. Similar assistance should be extended to Malaysia if requested.
• The United States should be prepared to respond to future Chinese coercive acts including using U.S. naval forces to deter China’s continuing use of “white hulled” paramilitary vessels. Other responses, such as imposing economic sanctions on Chinese energy companies should they drill in contested waters, are also conceivable but should not be specified in advance.
• The United States should state clearly and publicly that a declaration of an ADIZ by Beijing over the South China Sea would be destabilizing and would not be recognized by Washington.
• To further reduce the risk of an accident between U.S. and Chinese forces, the two militaries should implement their joint commitment to conclude an agreement on air-to-air encounters by the end of the year.

 

 

 

When Law is NOT Justice

July 14, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/opinion/when-law-is-not-justice.html?

Brad Evans and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

THE STONE

This conversation is with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who is a university professor in the humanities at Columbia University. She is the author of “An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization,” and other books.

Brad Evans: Throughout your work, you have written about the conditions faced by the globally disadvantaged, notably in places such as India, China and Africa. How might we use philosophy to better understand the various types of violence that erupt as a result of the plight of the marginalized in the world today?

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: While violence is not beyond naming and diagnosis, it does raise many challenging questions all the same. I am a pacifist. I truly believe in the power of nonviolence. But we cannot categorically deny a people the right to resist violence, even, under certain conditions, with violence. Sometimes situations become so intolerable that moral certainties are no longer meaningful. There is a difference here between condoning such a response and trying to understand why the recourse to violence becomes inevitable.

When human beings are valued as less than human, violence begins to emerge as the only response. When one group designates another as lesser, they are saying the “inferior” group cannot think in a “reasonable” way. It is important to remember that this is an intellectual violation, and in fact that the oppressed group’s right to manual labor is not something they are necessarily denied. In fact, the oppressed group is often pushed to take on much of society’s necessary physical labor. Hence, it is not that people are denied agency; it is rather that an unreasonable or brutish type of agency is imposed on them. And, the power inherent in this physical agency eventually comes to intimidate the oppressors. The oppressed, for their part, have been left with only one possible identity, which is one of violence. That becomes their politics and it appropriates their intellect.

This brings us directly to the issue of “reasonable” versus “unreasonable” violence. When dealing with violence deemed unreasonable, the dominating groups demonize violent responses, saying that “those other people are just like that,” not just that they are worth less, but also that they are essentially evil, essentially criminal or essentially have a religion that is prone to killing.

And yet, on the other side, state-legitimized violence, considered “reasonable” by many, is altogether more frightening. Such violence argues that if a person wears a certain kind of clothing or belongs to a particular background, he or she is legally killable. Such violence is more alarming, because it is continuously justified by those in power.

B.E.: At least some violent resistance in the 20th century was tied to struggles for national liberation, whether anti-colonial or (more common in Europe) anti-fascist. Is there some new insight needed to recognize forces of domination and exploitation that are separated from nation states and yet are often explained as some return to localism and ethnicity?

G.C.S.: This is a complicated question demanding serious philosophical thought. I have just come back from the World Economic Forum, and their understanding of power and resistance is very different from that of a group such as the ethnic Muslim Rohingya who live on the western coast of Myanmar; though both are already deeply embedded in global systems of power and influence, even if from opposing sides. The Rohingya have been the victims of a slow genocide as described by Maung Zarni, Amartya Sen and others. This disrupts an Orientalist reading of Buddhism as forever the peace-loving religion. Today, we see Buddhists from Thailand, Sri Lanka and Myanmar engage in state-sanctioned violence against minorities.

The fact is that when the pro-democracy spokesperson Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest there, she could bravely work against oppressive behavior on the part of the military government. But once she was released and wanted to secure and retain power, she became largely silent on the plight of these people and has sided with the majority party, which has continued to wage violence against non-Buddhist minorities. One school of thought says that in order to bring democracy in the future, she has to align herself with the majority party now. I want to give Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi the benefit of the doubt. But when the majority party is genocidal, there is a need to address that. Aligning with them cannot possibly bring democracy.

However, rather than retreating back into focused identity politics, resistance in this context means connecting the plight of the Rohingya to global struggles, the context of which is needed in order to address any particular situation. Older, national, identity-based struggles like those you mention are less persuasive in a globalized world. All of this is especially relevant as Myanmar sets up its first stock exchange and prepares to enter the global capitalist system.

In globalization as such, when the nation states are working in the interest of global capital, democracy is reduced to body counting, which often works against educated judgments. The state is trapped in the demands of finance capital. Resistance must know about financial regulation in order to demand it. This is bloodless resistance, and it has to be learned. We must produce knowledge of these seemingly abstract globalized systems so that we can challenge the social violence of unregulated capitalism.

B.E.: What are the implications when the promotion of human rights is left to what you have called “self-appointed entrepreneurs” and philanthropists, from individuals such as Bill Gates onto organizations like the World Bank, who have a very particular conception of rights and the “rule of law?”

G.C.S.: It is just that there can be law, but law is not justice.

The passing of a law and the proof of its existence is not enough to assure effective resistance to oppression. Some of the gravest violations of rights have occurred within legal frameworks. And, if that law governs a society never trained in what Michel Foucault would call “the practice of freedom,” it is there to be enforced by force alone, and the ones thus forced will find better and better loopholes around it.

That is why the “intuition” of democracy is so vital when dealing with the poorest of the poor, groups who have come to believe their wretchedness is normal. And when it comes time to starve, they just tighten their nonexistent belts and have to suffer, fatefully accepting this in silence. It’s more than children playing with rocks in the streets. It takes over every aspect of the people’s existence. And yet these people still work, in the blazing heat, for little or next to nothing for wealthy landowners. This is a different kind of poverty.

Against this, we have this glamorization of urban poverty by the wealthier philanthropist and aid agencies. There is always a fascination with the picture-perfect idea of poverty; children playing in open sewers and the rest of it. Of course, such lives are proof of grave social injustice. But top-down philanthropy, with no interest in an education that strengthens the soul, is counterproductive, an assurance that there will be no future resistance, only instant celebrity for the philanthropist.

I say “self-appointed” entrepreneurs because there is often little or no regulation placed upon workers in the nongovernmental sector. At best, they are ad hoc workers picking up the slack for a neo-liberal state whose managerial ethos cannot be strong on redistribution,, and where structural constitutional resistance by citizens cannot be effective in the face of an unconstituted “rule of law” operating, again, to protect the efficiency of global capital growth. The human rights lobby moves in to shame the state, and in ad hoc ways restores rights. But there is then no democratic follow-up, and these organizations rarely stick around long enough to see that.

Another problem with these organizations is the way they emphasize capitalism’s social productivity without mentioning capital’s consistent need to sustain itself at the expense of curtailing the rights of some sectors of the population. This is all about the removal of access to structures of reparation: the disappearance of the welfare state, or its not coming into being at all.

If we turn to “development,” we often see that what is sustained in sustainable development is cost-effectiveness and profit-maximization, with the minimum action necessary in terms of environmental responsibility. We could call such a thing “sustainable underdevelopment.”

Today everything is about urbanization, urban studies, metropolitan concerns, network societies and so on. Nobody in policy circles talks about the capitalization of land and how this links directly to the dispossession of people’s rights. This is another line of inquiry any consideration of violence must take into account.

B.E.: While you have shown appreciation for a number of thinkers known for their revolutionary interventions, such as Frantz Fanon, you have also critiqued the limits of their work when it comes to issues of gender and the liberation of women. Why?

G.C.S.: I stand by my criticism of Fanon, but he is not alone here. In fact he is like most other men who talk about revolutionary struggle. Feminist struggle can’t be learned from them. And yet, in “A Dying Colonialism,” Fanon is really trying from within to understand the position of women by asking questions about patriarchal structures of domination.

After the revolution, in postcolonial Algeria and elsewhere, those women who were part of the struggle had to separate themselves from revolutionary liberation organizations that were running the state in order to continue fighting for their rights under separate initiatives. Gender is bigger and older than state formations and its fight is older than the fight for national liberation or the fight between capitalism and socialism. So we have to let questions of gender interrupt these revolutionary ideas, otherwise revolution simply reworks marked gender divisions in societies.

B.E.: You are clearly committed to the power of education based on aesthetic practices, yet you want to challenge the canonical Western aesthetic ideas from which they are derived using your concepts of “imaginative activism” and “affirmative sabotage.” How can this work?

G.C.S.: Imaginative activism takes the trouble to imagine a text — understood as a textile, woven web rather than narrowly as a printed page — as having its own demands and prerogatives. This is why the literary is so important. The simplest teaching of literature was to grasp the vision of the writer. This was disrupted in the 1960s by the preposterous concern “Is this book of relevance to me?” which represented a tremendous assault on the literary, a tremendous group narcissism. For literature to be meaningful it should not necessarily be of obvious relevance. That is the aesthetic challenge, to imagine that which is not immediately apparent. This can fight what is implicit in voting bloc democracy. Relevant to me, rather than flexible enough to work for others who are not like me at all. The inbuilt challenge of democracy – needing an educated, not just informed, electorate.

I used the term “affirmative sabotage” to gloss on the usual meaning of sabotage: the deliberate ruining of the master’s machine from the inside. Affirmative sabotage doesn’t just ruin; the idea is of entering the discourse that you are criticizing fully, so that you can turn it around from inside. The only real and effective way you can sabotage something this way is when you are working intimately within it.

This is particularly the case with the imperial intellectual tools, which have been developed not just upon the shoulders, but upon the backs of people for centuries. Let’s take as a final example what Immanuel Kant says when developing his “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment.” Not only does Kant insist that we need to imagine another person, he also insists for the need to internalize it to such an extent that it becomes second nature to think and feel with the other person.

Leaving aside the fact that Kant doesn’t talk about slavery whatsoever in his book, he even states that women and domestic servants are incapable of the civic imagination that would make them capable of cosmopolitan thinking. But, if you really think about it, it’s women and domestic servants who were actually trained to think and feel like their masters. They constantly had to put themselves in the master’s shoes, to enter into their thoughts and desires so much that it became second nature for them to serve.

So this is how one sabotages. You accept the unbelievable and unrelenting brilliance of Kant’s work, while confronting the imperial qualities he reproduces and showing the contradictions in this work. It is, in effect, to jolt philosophy with a reality check. It is to ask, for example, if this second-naturing of women, servants and others can be done without coercion, constraint and brainwashing. And, when the ruling race or class claims the right to do this, is there a problem of power being ignored in all their claimed benevolence? What would educated resistance look like in this case? It would misfire, because society is not ready for it. For that reason, one must continue to work — to quote Marx — for the possibility of a poetry of the future.

 Now in print: “The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments,” an anthology of essays from The Times’s philosophy series, edited by Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley, published by Liveright Books.

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South China Sea: Vietnam benefits from PCA ruling but China is not without options

July 14, 2016

South China Sea:  Vietnam benfits from PCA ruling but China is not without options

by Zachary Abuza

On  July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) issued a definitive ruling on China’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea.

The Philippines filed their arbitration suit in January 2003. China refused to participate in the hearings, arguing that the PCA and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea do not have the legal authority to rule on sovereignty issues. The Philippines wrote their submission in a way that sovereignty was never the issue at hand, instead focusing on the issues of entitlements of certain features, historical rights, environmental degradation and the meaning of the nine-dash line.

The PCA took China’s consideration into account, and in December 2015, ruled that it had standing to rule on 15 specific points. Their ruling was the strongest affirmation of the rule of law and creates an important legal precedent. The decision is a landmark ruling and a devastating blow to China.

Few legal scholars or international relations specialists were expecting the Court to rule unanimously in the Philippines favor on 14 of 15 counts. Most importantly, the PCA ruled that the nine-dash line has no basis in international law and that the historical rights claimed by China were “extinguished” by the ratification of UNCLOS. The Court ruled that no feature in the Spratly Island is a habitable feature in its natural state, and therefore, no feature is entitled to a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

In short, the PCA ruled that China has no exclusive right to resources in the East Vietnam Sea when it claimed almost 90 per cent of them. No other country stands to gain more from the ruling than Vietnam. “Vietnam welcomes the arbitration court issuing its final ruling,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a terse statement.

“Vietnam strongly supports the resolution of the disputes in the South China Sea by peaceful means, including diplomatic and legal processes and refraining from the use or threats to use force, in accordance with international law.”

First, the legal invalidation of the nine-dash line is crucial. China’s nine-dash line clearly violated Vietnam’s EEZ and continental shelf rights, garnered from its coastline. China has no legal rights to fish or drill for hydrocarbons. The PCA ruling was unequivocal: China has violated the Philippines’ EEZ and continental shelf rights.

The same holds true for Vietnam. However, while this may make international oil firms think twice about bidding on Chinese exploration blocks on Vietnam’s continental shelf, China will continue to enforce sovereignty via its maritime militia.

Second, the PCA’s invalidation of China’s historical rights is critical. As the court ruled that the Philippines, too, enjoyed historical rights in those waters, it should follow that Vietnam shares the same rights; that is, historical rights are not mutually exclusive.

Third, the sweeping and thorough nature of the ruling means that Vietnam does not have to file an arbitration suit over the Spratly’s. Hanoi has been able to free ride on the courageous leadership of the Philippines. This is critical.

In 2014, at the height of the furore over the HYSY-981 oil rig placed clearly on Vietnam’s continental shelf, then Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung made clear that it was a matter of when, not if, it would join the Philippines and also file a suit with the PCA. But following China’s dispatch of State Counselor Yang Jiechi to Hanoi, in June 2014, that position was dropped.

Hanoi did file a brief with the PCA, but only to request the tribunal to take Vietnam’s legal position into consideration. While Beijing was not pleased with Hanoi, it was far short of a separate arbitration. But now Hanoi needs not test those diplomatic waters.

That said, Vietnam could use the PCA findings to lodge a suit against China regarding the Paracels, asking for clarification regarding features, whether they be rocks, reefs of low tide elevations. Likewise, it could use the PCA ruling to challenge China’s drawing of straight baselines around the Paracels. I doubt, however, that Hanoi would be emboldened to go down that path.

The ruling does has several downsides for Vietnam. First, Vietnam, too, has no claim to an EEZ from any of its held features. At best, it will enjoy a 12 nautical mile (NM) Territorial Sea from a few, such as Spratly Island.

Second, the PCA ruled that “China has inflicted irreparable harm to the marine environment,” through its construction of seven islands and reclamation of others. Vietnam has also engaged in land reclamation, albeit to a much smaller degree, around two per cent of China’s. And the court was highly critical of China’s construction of islands while the court was deliberating, stating that such reclamation was “incompatible with the obligations on a state during dispute resolution proceedings.” Hanoi should take note as it too is constantly upgrading its features. And it should also take note that the PCA ruling was unequivocal: artificial islands give no EEZ, and if they are constructed on low tide elevations, not even 12NM territorial seas.

Third, China may decide to draw straight baselines around its features in the Spratly Islands, just as it has done in the Paracels. The PCA has tried to preempt them from doing so, clearly stating “UNCLOS doesn’t provide for groups of islands to generate maritime zones collectively.” But that is what China will likely do, and those baselines will include Vietnamese held features.

China has said that the PCA’s ruling is “null and void,” that they inexplicably “violate international law,” and thus that it will not be bound by them. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made this clear in a 12 July statement: “China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea shall under no circumstances be affected by those awards. China opposes and will never accept any claim or action based on those awards.” UNCLOS articles 288(4) and 296 (1) are clear in this.

So how is China likely to respond to the ruling?

At one extreme, it could increase the militarisation of the islands that it has built. It could deploy anti-aircraft missile batteries already based at the Paracels, as well as more fighter aircraft ahead of declaring an air defense identification zone (ADIZ). It certainly is not going to stop military operations and exercises in the South China Sea.

Short of that, it could lash out on a bilateral basis, meaning China could retaliate against the Philippines by beginning land reclamation at Scarborough Shoal, or at least continue to deny access there to Filipino fishermen. China could, likewise, deny Vietnam access to their features.

China will continue to enforce its claim of sovereignty, not through its navy or even its coast guard, but through its maritime militia; an armed and deputised fishing fleet that remains within the command and control of the security forces. The day before the PCA ruling, two Chinese vessels rammed and sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat. While Beijing has lost the legal fight, no country is pushing back regarding China’s unilateral enforcement of sovereignty through its fishermen.

China may weigh the costs of being overly aggressive. Despite its claims of substantial international support, only 10 countries openly support China’s legal position, and most of them are landlocked, poor, corrupt and dependent on Chinese aid. It wants to be a superpower, but without carrying any of the costs, such as leading by example, taking hits in international courts, or providing collective goods.

The Chinese leadership has painted themselves into a corner, by fanning the flames of nationalism in their state controlled media. The Chinese Communist Party has tried to harness nationalism, but more importantly tried to assert China’s “rights” lost in the two centuries of humiliation to the West and Japan, to legitimise the regime.

China is most likely to act closer to home, and continue to use its influence over Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, and even Myanmar, to prevent a unified response from ASEAN, which meets in a few weeks’ time.

It has not helped that following the PCA ruling there was deafening silence out of Jakarta, and even worse, the conflicting signals that we have seen from the TNI, Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Fisheries, and the President’s office. Without Indonesian leadership, there can be no effective ASEAN response.

So there are three things that Hanoi must do. First, Vietnam must use all the leverage at their disposal, especially over Laos and Cambodia. But it has recently dawned on Hanoi how little of their historical influence they still maintain. Vietnam would be wise to remind Hun Sen how much Cambodia relies on international courts and other countries accepting their ruling regarding its claim to Preah Vihear. ASEAN centrality, seemingly jettisoned at Kunming, must be restored. And then, the group must use the ruling as a new impetus to push for a binding Code of Conduct with China.

Second, Vietnam will have to use their coast guard to counter Chinese fishermen and maritime militia. The rule of law is on Vietnam’s side, but it must be enforced. As long as China can unilaterally deny others access to the South China Sea, it has de facto sovereignty.

Third, it must work with other states to give China a face-saving way out. Until Beijing realises that it’s in its interest to accept the ruling, it will not abide by it. The downside of the ruling is that it is so unequivocal that it doesn’t give China any face-saving way out.

There’s one last thing Hanoi should note: independent courts can produce some wonderful outcomes if free from political interference. It may consider that at home, where its commitment to the rule of law seems a lot less convincing than it did today in support of the PCA ruling.

Dr Zachary Abuza is a Professor at the National War College, in Washington, DC, where he focuses on Southeast Asian politics and security issues, including governance, insurgencies, democratisation and human rights, and maritime security.

Source:

Hanoi’s hopes rise with China’s dashed nine-dash line

Malaysia’s Atheists: Malaysia’s Atheists: Endangered Species or Quietly Burgeoning?

July 13, 2016

by Dr. Lim Teck Ghee

Although we have detailed statistics on most subjects of importance in the country, we do not yet have a definitive set of statistical data on the religious beliefs and affiliation of Malaysians. The closest we have to a reliable breakdown of the country’s population by religious belief is somewhat dated as it is derived from the country’s last census. 

According to the 2010 Population and Housing Census, 61.3 percent of the population practice Islam; 19.8 % Buddhism; 9.2 % Christianity; 6.3 % Hinduism; and 1.3 % traditional Chinese religions. From the official statistics, it appears that the official major religious groupings add up to 97.9% of the country’s 30 million population today, leaving a tiny minority of 2% or about 600,000 Malaysians belonging to the category of non-believers in God or those adhering to non-religious systems of belief.

Surprisingly, the official data has included the followers of Sikhism together with the tiny minority professing non-religious faiths such as animism, folk religion, and other belief systems. Recent estimates place the size of the Sikh community at 350,000 members. Should this number be taken out of the over 600,000 Malaysians adhering to folk, animistic or non-religious systems, this leaves a total of at most 300,000 Malaysians professing to belong to what may be described as other non-religious belief systems or belief systems that do not believe in God.

Is this very small number according to the official count reliable or believable? Or are there more atheist or agnostic Malaysians who, for various reasons, have been missed out in our national profiling?

Before we can answer this question, it is necessary to point out that religions and beliefs are difficult to survey. They involve subject matters that are held by respondents to be deeply personal and hence the outcomes may be influenced by the way questions are worded, the methodology used or by other factors.

Among the reasons why the very small official number can be regarded as an under-estimate is that the drafters of the Rukun Negara thought it necessary to place the principle, ‘Kepercayaan Kepada Tuhan’ or ‘ Belief In God’ as the foremost tenet to guide and unite Malaysians of the various religions. 

This may have resulted in our census authorities being predisposed or biased towards identifying their Malaysian respondents as believing in God rather than to be more open towards the opposite possibility. Or perhaps the respondents themselves may have taken the line of least resistance and concurred that they belong to some faith group for fear of official disapproval.

An important factor explaining why the number of self-described atheists in Malaysia are few is because of state and societal discrimination and disapproval. There is presently no official secular organization in the country and, under the present government, no likelihood that such an organization will be allowed to be set up.

Despite the official efforts directed at discouraging the spread of atheism, some attempts have been made at bringing together individuals from this grouping. An internet website called “Malaysian Atheists” was set up recently in response to the need for the country’s atheists “to come together and be recognized as a significant segment of a society dominated by religious peoples and state-supported religious laws, policies and bodies” (see http://www.malaysianatheists.org/). There is also an informal grouping in Facebook group known as MAFA (Malaysian Atheist Freethinkers and Agnostics) that was once active but is now apparently defunct.

Both of these initiatives have had to operate well beneath the official radar because of the recent increase in state discrimination against atheists and those with non-religious beliefs.

Although some estimates indicate that the number of atheists and non-believers has further declined in Malaysia, there is reason to dispute these estimates if we consider the world wide trend of growing agnosticism and atheism.

According to the 2014 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, a majority of the population in nine European countries surveyed, as well as in Canada, Israel, Japan, Australia, Argentina and Chile did not think that a belief in God was a necessary part of being moral. This figure was as high as 85% in France and 80% in Spain. The young and the university-educated were found to be more likely to hold this view in many countries.

In the two countries which are frequently used as proxies for the developed countries of the world, the trend towards being non-religious or religiously unaffiliated is clearly growing.

According to National Public Radio (NPR), an American privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves a network of 900 public radio stations in the US, one-fifth of Americans are religiously unaffiliated. This is a higher proportion than at any time in recent U.S. history with those younger than 30 especially drifting away from organized religion. A third of young Americans also say they don’t belong to any religion.

In Britain a WIN/Gallup poll in 2014 found that its citizens were very skeptical on the benefits of religion. Only a third of British respondents saw religion as a force for good, whilst over a quarter believed it to exert a negative impact. In Denmark, Belgium, France and Spain, the overall perception of religions was negative. The same poll found that 36% of the world’s population could be defined as non-religious, with 13% of that self-defining as atheists – a significant increase on previous years.

Current Trend of State-Led Hate Against Atheists

Amid the global decline in religious belief, some governments have been stepping up efforts to portray atheists and secularists as a danger to society and even as terrorists

A recent study by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), a United Nations-accredited NGO that promotes the welfare and growth of humanist, atheist, rationalist, free thought and similar groups around the world has pointed to “hate campaigns” against those who renounce the dominant or state religion in Muslim nations.

The latest IHEU’s annual survey on discrimination and persecution against non-religious people has noted that “the overwhelming majority of countries fail to respect the rights of atheists and freethinkers” as set out in UN treaties and that 13 Muslim states had made apostasy or blasphemy against religion a capital offense.

Back home in Malaysia, the report noted that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has branded humanism, secularism and liberalism as “deviant” and a “threat to Islam and the state” – seehttp://freethoughtreport.com/download-the-report/.

There is little doubt that the Prime Minister’s unprecedented attack against atheists and free thinkers has been responsible for the charge that Malaysia, together with Saudi Arabia and Iraq, are “the worst places [in the world] to be an atheist” (http://www.worldreligionnews.com/issues/the-worst-places-to-be-an-atheist-are-malaysia-iraq-saudi-arabia).

 

On Prime Minister Theresa May

July 13, 2016

5 Things to Know About Theresa May, Britain’s Next Prime Minister

by Russell Goldman

Theresa May, the new Conservative Party leader, will become Britain’s second female Prime Minister on Wednesday, entering 10 Downing Street three weeks after Britain voted to leave the European Union.A shrewd politician who was described favorably by a colleague as a “bloody difficult woman,” Ms. May, 59, takes power at a tumultuous moment in her country’s history.

Here are five things you need to know about her.

She has been a long-serving Home Secretary

Ms. May has served longer in the difficult cabinet post of Home Secretary, overseeing the nation’s domestic security and immigration agencies, than any since the 19th century. She has held the post since 2010, 13 years after she was first elected to Parliament.

She is considered a moderate in the Conservative Party and has been compared to Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany; both are known for their pragmatism. As Home Secretary, Ms. May was criticized for failing to meet a Conservative pledge to sharply reduce the net number of immigrants to Britain.

She has promised to lead Britain out of the European Union

Though Ms. May supported Prime Minister David Cameron’s stance in favor of remaining in the European Union, she said little publicly during the referendum campaign, leading to some speculation that she privately favored leaving, known as Brexit. That ambiguity helped her to emerge as a compromise candidate who might promise to unify the party’s factions.

She has ruled out holding a second referendum, saying that the people have spoken and that “Brexit means Brexit.” Still, she is not in a hurry: She said she would not invoke the legal mechanism that begins the withdrawal process until later in the year.

She wants to give workers a seat on corporate boards

Ms. May has said that people want more than just a “Brexit P.M.,” and has pledged “a bold new positive vision for the future of our country, a country that works not for a privileged few but for every one of us.” She has promised to address inequality, give workers greater representation on corporate boards and limit tax cuts.

She was introduced to her husband by Benazir Bhutto

Like Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, Ms. May was born into a middle-class family. She was educated at Oxford, where she belonged to the Conservative Association and the Oxford Union, a debating society known for producing future leaders.

At a Conservative Association dance in 1976, she was introduced to Philip May, her future husband, by Benazir Bhutto, a fellow student who would go on to become the first female Prime Minister of Pakistan.

She is an avid cookbook collector

To relax, Ms. May has said she enjoys cooking (she owns more than 100 cookbooks) and taking long walks in the countryside.She is known for her eclectic footwear, and often wears leopard-print shoes.

A version of this article appears in print on July 13, 2016, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Five Things to Know About Britain’s Next Leader. | Today’s Paper

South China Sea-International Tribunal rules in favour of Philippines

July 12, 2016

By Simon Denyer and Emily Rauhala

https://www.washingtonpost.com

Crew members of China’s South Sea Fleet taking part in a drill in the Xisha Islands, or the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea in May. (Str/AFP/Getty Images)

An international tribunal has ruled that China does not have historic rights to justify its expansive claims to the South China Sea, in a major blow to Beijing.

China has repeatedly made it clear it will not accept, recognize nor implement Tuesday’s ruling on the South China Sea, the hotly contested waterway that contains some of the world’s busiest shipping routes. But the verdict, which came in strongly in favor of the Philippines and against China, will nevertheless undermine its claim to sovereignty under the nine-dash line which it draws around most of the South China Sea.

The tribunal ruled that “there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources … within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’.”

In a statement, the Philippines’ Secretary of Foreign Affairs welcomed the ruling, calling it a “milestone,” but urging “restraint and sobriety” among all concerned.

“The verdict is the best case scenario that few thought possible,” said Richard Javad Heydarian, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Manila’s De La Salle University.

“It is a clean sweep for the Philippines, with the tribunal rejecting China’s nine-dashed line and historical rights claim as well as censuring its aggressive activities in the area and, among others, the ecological damage caused by its reclamation activity.”

Hours before the verdict was announced, China repeated its rejection of the tribunal’s jurisdiction.

“The so-called arbitration tribunal, from the very beginning, was established on the basis of illegal behaviors and appeals of the Philippines,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a news conference before the ruling came out. “Its existence does not have legitimacy. Any ruling it might make will be illegal and invalid.”

The tribunal was never going to completely resolve the dispute over maritime sovereignty. But the strong ruling could inflame regional tensions, and whether it leads to more friction between China and the United States.

The Philippines took China to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague in January 2013 after the Chinese navy seized control of Scarborough Shoal, a largely submerged chain of reefs and rocks set amid rich fishing grounds off the main Philippine island of Luzon.

The United States has been leading international calls for China to respect the tribunal’s decision, and the issue has become a key test of its ability to maintain its leading role in Asian security in the face of China’s rising power.

The Philippines took China to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague in January 2013 after the Chinese navy seized control of Scarborough Shoal, a largely submerged chain of reefs and rocks set amid rich fishing grounds off the main Philippine island of Luzon.

The United States has been leading international calls for China to respect the tribunal’s decision, and the issue has become a key test of its ability to maintain its leading role in Asian security in the face of China’s rising power.

Beijing has refused to participate in the arbitration process, and instead launched a global propaganda campaign to make its case. Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted as telling his counterpart John Kerry last week the process was a “farce,” while his ministry says you have to be delusional to think China will bow to diplomatic pressure to accept the ruling.

Some $5 trillion in commerce, roughly one third of global trade, flow through the waters of the South China Sea every year, while its fisheries account for 12 percent of the global catch and significant oil and gas reserves are thought to exist under the sea floor. Yet the waters are some of the most fiercely disputed in the world, with claims to various parts staked by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

China’s nine-dash line, a version of which first appeared on its maps in 1947, loops through the vast majority of the South China Sea, and Beijing uses it to claim sovereignty over almost all the islands, reefs and rocks in the South China Sea.

Beijing says its sovereignty claims date back hundreds of years and are “indisputable.” In the past two years it has undertaken a massive land reclamation process in the sea, turning seven reefs and rocks into nascent military outposts, with several airstrips and radar installations under construction.

But the tribunal also backed the Philippines submission that none of those features are islands — as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ( UNCLOS).

Only natural (rather than artificially constructed) islands that can sustain human habitation qualify for both 12-nautical miles of territorial waters and 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) under UNCLOS.In other words, the ruling drastically undermines China’s claim to the waters surrounding the island bases it is in the process of building.

China says the tribunal lacked the jurisdiction to rule on Manila’s various submissions, and says it has abused its powers.

In Washington last week, former senior official Dai Bingguo derided the ruling as “nothing more than a scrap of paper,” a refrain eagerly echoed by state media here. China also argues that the Philippines had previously agreed to resolve the dispute bilaterally.

But its legal case is undermined by a key provision in UNCLOS, which states that the tribunal alone can decide if it has the jurisdiction to rule on issues before it. In October last year, the tribunal decided it indeed had jurisdiction to rule on several key issues brought by Manila. The tribunal’s decision is legally binding, but it lacks any mechanism to enforce its rulings.

In rejecting the decision, Beijing is certainly not alone. No permanent member of the U.N. Security Council has ever complied with a ruling by the PCA on the Law of the Sea, wrote Graham Allison, Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “In fact, none of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council have ever accepted any international court’s ruling when (in their view) it infringed on their sovereignty or national security interests, Allison wrote in The Diplomat.

The United States has never ratified UNCLOS, and rejected a 1980 verdict at the International Court of Justice ordering it to pay reparations to Nicaragua for mining its harbors, he noted.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu accused the United States of “using international law when it favors itself while discarding it when it does not.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu accused the United States of “using international law when it favors itself while discarding it when it does not.”

Nevertheless, the case is an important indication of China’s willingness to submit itself to international law as its clout grows, and a sign of what kind of global power it wants to become.

Despite its efforts to dismiss and discredit the process, Beijing was certainly far from indifferent about the result, analysts said.What happens next will depend on how the key players — China, the Philippines and the U.S. — react.

The United States has already conducted several “freedom of navigation” exercises in the South China Sea, sending warships within 12 nautical miles of islands, reefs and rocks controlled by China and other claimants. It is also rebuilding military ties with the Philippines. China cites this as evidence that it is President Obama’s actions — not its island-building – that are responsible for militarizing the region.

Last week, the U.S. Navy said it had also sent destroyers to patrol close to some of the islands and reefs held by China, although those ships stayed just outside the 12-nautical-mile zone. Washington might decide to step up its patrols after the ruling.

China, meanwhile, could attempt to reinforce its de facto control by declaring an Air Defense Identification Zone over the South China Sea, under which any incoming aircraft would supposedly have to first declare their presence to Chinese authorities. Another option might be to build a new military base on Scarborough Shoal.

“If China declares an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, the U.S. is likely to challenge it with military fly-bys,” Yanmie Xie and Tom Johnston of the International Crisis Group wrote before the decision was announced. “If the U.S. conducts more frequent and higher profile freedom of navigation patrols near Chinese-held reefs, Beijing may feel compelled to intercept or even evict U.S. vessels. The risk of military clashes is small but cannot be ruled out.”

Yet there are also good reasons for all sides to react cautiously.China hosts a summit of the Group of 20 major economies in September, and is unlikely to want the meeting to take place amid an intense row over the South China Sea.

It is also likely to want time to gauge the reaction from Manila, where newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte has sent mixed signals over the issue.

Early in his presidential campaign, Duterte, a long-time mayor with limited foreign policy experience, implied he might be willing to soften his stance on China in return for Chinese infrastructure spending. Later, in a play to nationalist sentiment, he promised to ride a Jetski to Scarborough Shoal to plant the Philippine flag.

Since his inauguration, he has struck a more cautious tone. His challenge will be to appear strong at home to satisfy national pride, without needlessly angering Beijing.

Gu Jinglu, Xu Yangjingjing and Xu Jing in Beijing and Michael Goe Delizo in Manila contributed to this report.