China Increases Its Hostile Rhetoric On The South China Sea Boundary Dispute

(Hobe, Holger Behr/Public domain via commons)

Steve Mollman, Quartz: “To deal with dogs, we should use a stick”—Chinese cheer military drills in the disputed South China Sea

China will conduct military drills in the contested South China Sea this week, ratcheting up tensions ahead of a tribunal ruling expected to challenge its claims to most of the strategically important sea. China’s territorial claims overlap in parts with those of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan in an area that holds vast energy and marine resources and through which more than $5 trillion in trade passes every year.

Beijing announced the drills yesterday (July 3) in a brief online statement (link in Chinese), saying the exercises will last from Tuesday until July 11—the day before the ruling by the United Nations-backed tribunal in The Hague. The statement gave geographic coordinates of the drills, which will cover an area running east of China’s Hainan Island down to and including the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by both China and Vietnam. It also said the area will be off limits to other ships.

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WNU Editor: And I thought Donald Trump's rhetoric is sometimes over the top. This type of language from China is going to make it impossible (if not already) for any Chinese leader (from the present to the future) to make any accommodation on the South China Sea boundary dispute. The "lost of face" would be huge, and it will certainly end any Chinese political career.