South China Sea: calls to honour Hague ruling 5 years on, but Beijing digs in

Five years ago, Beijing blithely dismissed an international tribunal’s landmark ruling that found its sweeping claims in the South China Sea had no legal basis.

Liu Zhenmin, China’s then foreign vice-minister, said the decision handed down at The Hague in July 2016 was “just a piece of waste paper” that China would not recognise or enforce. “You may chuck it in the bin, leave it on the shelf or put it in the archives,” he said. “It is null and void, and has no binding force.”

With little recourse to enforce the ruling in his country’s favour, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte – who had taken office after a landslide victory that May – flew to Beijing in October 2016 and declared that the tribunal decision would “take the back seat”. It was on that trip that Duterte, angered also by US criticism of his bloody war on drugs, declared that “America has lost now”, and moved to warmly embrace Chinese investment and trade.

On the July 12 anniversary of the tribunal’s decision, countries including the US, Canada, Australia and Japan called on China to abide by the judgment. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said that the US’ mutual defence treaty with the Philippines would cover an attack in the South China Sea, to which Beijing responded by again describing the arbitration verdict as a “piece of waste paper” and a “political farce which is initiated and manipulated by the US to smear and suppress China”.