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THREAD > Fact checking this fact check. First, the author argues that China doesn't claim historic rights in the SCS in excess of the maritime entitlements allowed by UNCLOS. This is a doozy. The author basically argues that bc China's claim is unclear, it doesn't really exist.
China certainly claims vast if ill-defined historic rights throughout the SCS well beyond UNCLOS entitlements. Ex: MFA statements and govt-issued maps show China claims historic fishing grounds in Indonesia's EEZ maritimeawarenessproject.org/wp-content/upl…
The author argues that any Chinese fishing in foreign EEZs is allowable as traditional fishing under UNCLOS Art 51, but this is a misreading of both UNCLOS & the tribunal ruling. The tribunal specifically said fishing rights in the EEZ are exclusive.
Traditional fishing rights apply only to artisanal fishers, which by definition are restricted to coastal waters. Traditional/artisanal fishers by definition didn't operate hundreds of miles from shore, thus there are no traditional fishing rights in the EEZ.
And traditional fishing cannot rely on modern gear and methods, as Chinese trawlers and falling net vessels throughout the SCS do. So any Chinese "historic rights" to fishing in EEZs is clearly in excess of the rights allowed by UNCLOS (which was spelled out by the tribunal)
The author also argues China doesn't claim historic rights to oil & gas because it doesn't act to prevent its neighbors' drilling operations, it only objects to them. Well here's a pretty detailed look at ongoing attempts to block Malaysian & VN drilling amti.csis.org/china-risks-fl…
And then there's Duterte's frequent refrain that China has threatened war if the Philippines drills at Reed Bank. reuters.com/article/us-sou…
AND China's verbal and written objections to oil & gas operations show that it obviously claims rights to those resources. Otherwise why would it be objecting? This is a pretty big hole in the author's logic.
Now there is one plausible explanation for China's actions OTHER than historic rights, and that's that Beijing claims full EEZ and continental shelf entitlements from all the SCS features. That of course would be non-compliant with the 2nd major part of the ruling.
So there are three options to explain China's actions. 1) It illegally claims historic rights. 2) It illegally claims full maritime entitlements from uninhabitable rocks. 3) It claims all of the above. The author can't argue that it's in compliance with both parts of the ruling.
The author argues that the 2017 harassment of a PH resupply mission to 2nd Thomas isn't enough to prove China claims the feature. I don't accept that, but regardless CCG ships patrol around 2nd Thomas all the time as evidenced by publicly available AIS.
And it's no secret that those patrols regularly shadow and harass resupply missions to the Sierra Madre--the 2017 incident was the most aggressive but hardly only incident.
The author then dismisses again the idea that China blocks its neighbors oil and gas exploration, which I assume he wrote before the current revelations about Chinese efforts to block Malaysian & VN operations hit international news outlets.
The author next argues that China doesn't seek to restrict its neighbors' fishing and dismisses its annual declaration of a moratorium north of the 12th parallel. I honestly don't understand this part of his argument. Those include PH & VN waters & China's moratorium is illegal.
The author then repeats that he doesn't think Chinese fishing in its neighbors' EEZs is illegal, and argues that these qualify as traditional fishing rights. As I said already, the tribunal explicitly tackled and rejected this argument.
Welch also suggests that if Duterte actually gave Chinese fishers permission to fish in the PHL EEZ then they wouldn't be violating the ruling. This is actually true, as far as the PHL EEZ. But it doesn't justify continued Chinese fishing in the VN, Malaysian, and Indonesian EEZ
Next he argues that while Chinese clam harvesting at Scarborough is unfortunate, it's not clear if it violates the ruling b/c its unclear whether the govt sanctions it. The ABS-CBN video of CCG ships overseeing harvesting ops puts that argument to bed. amti.csis.org/chinas-most-de…
Welch also states that clam harvesting in the Paracels doesn't violate the letter of the ruling b/c it was outside its scope. This is technically true, and he makes similar points throughout. But seems disingenuous...
If the tribunal ruled a certain action (environmental destruction, fishing, oil and gas harassment, COLREGs violations, etc) violated UNCLOS when conducted in PH waters, then they also violate UNCLOS when China does them in VN, Malaysian, and Indonesian waters.
And if his argument is China will never publicly comply with the ruling itself but is trying to quietly comply with its substance, then you can't dismiss violations of that substance in VN, Indonesian & Malaysian waters by saying it doesn't matter b/c the text only cover PH
Finally, Welch argues that China isn't violating COLREGs by dismissing both the 2017 harassment of PH resupply at 2nd Thomas & the Decatur incident. But CCG ships have been intentionally creating risks of collisions around Malaysian & VN drilling rigs & civilian ships since May..
The entire point of the maritime militia is to harass and intimidate the operations of neighboring states, often creating risks of collision to deter actions China doesn't like. For every incident that makes the papers, many more violations of COLREGS don't.
So to wrap-up, I'm sympathetic to the argument that China might, one day, be convinced to try to find politically face-saving ways to comply w/ the substance of the ruling. In fact, I think that likely w/ sufficient pressure. But it's not happening yet. END
