The legal question that could stop China's maritime power grab

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A diplomatic standoff between China and the Philippines that flared up two years ago in a dispute over fishing rights at a tiny shoal in the South China Sea is coming to a head after Manila decided to ignore Chinese threats and sue Beijing in an international tribunal.

The legal case marks the first time that an arbitration panel will examine China's contentious, and oft-disputed, claims to most of the South China Sea, one of the world's busiest byways for shipping and a potentially rich source of oil and natural gas.

The suit itself, a gargantuan, 4,000 page "memorial" filed before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, amounts to what is basically an existential question about rocks. Or rather, it's about the Philippines' desire for scores of specks in the South China Sea to be officially classified by the international panel as rocks, rather than islands. On such arcane definitions can hang the fate of nations — or in this case, the extension of economic rights of states to the seas and seabed off their coasts.

Simply put, islands are land, which entitle their owners to enjoy exclusive economic rights for 200 nautical miles in all directions, including rights to fishing and energy extraction. Rocks aren't, and don't.

If the tribunal rules against the Philippine claim, then the stakes in the battle for those specks of land would be much higher: whichever side eventually has its claims to the specks recognized by international law would be able to lay claim to vast areas potentially rich in resources. If Beijing loses the case, it will have to choose whether to abide by an international court or ignore its ruling and claim those seas anyway.

"What kind of great power will China be? Are they willing to play by the rules of the game or overthrow the system?" said Ely Ratner, deputy director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank.

"As much as there ever is, this is a clear-cut test of their willingness to bind themselves to rules that may end up not being in their favor."

http://theweek.com/article/index/259525/the-legal-question-that-could-end-chinas-maritime-power-grab