Scandal and speculation surrounding the demise of Politburo member Bo Xilai raised questions about the stability and cohesiveness of China's political elite. However as his trial comes to an end the main political challenge is not at the elite level, but in the Communist party's ability to gain legitimacy among the wider public. 

The trial of Bo Xilai for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power has generated a number of surprises. To start with, there has been more transparency than most observers had expected, with the court issuing transcripts at regular intervals. Plus, the court used Chinese social media to post images of the proceedings.

This level of transparency is unusual in Chinese trials. However, we should be cautious about seeing this as a precedent for the future development of judicial practice. Bo's case is rather special, both because of the senior positions he held and because of the level of speculation around the case – and Bo's fate – ever since the drama began last February when Wang Lijun, Bo's former police chief in Chongqing, fled to the US Consulate-General in Chengdu. 

Wang, who is already serving a prison sentence after being convicted of abuse of power and other offences, gave testimony at Bo's trial. The exchanges between Bo and Wang will be picked over further, with their salacious details of the arguments that apparently ensued in January 2012 when Wang told Bo that Bo's wife was suspected of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood, in Chongqing the previous November. 

It is highly likely that Bo will be found guilty. Nonetheless, the trial gave Bo the opportunity to put across his views in court. He surprised observers on the first day by retracting confessions he made during the pre-trial investigation process. It is not clear whether this was expected by the prosecutors in advance of the trial, but it contributed to the trial lasting for five days – much longer than expected. 

Result already decided

Most media coverage and comment has focused on the details of the various events, which came out in court. However the political implications lie elsewhere. 

The trial should not be seen in isolation but as the culmination of a process which began in the days after Wang's attempted defection was brought to light. The party's subsequent handling of Bo Xilai proceeded in cautious stages: first the removal from his post as Party Secretary in Chongqing in March last year, then his 'suspension' from the Politburo and Party Central Committee a month later while an investigation was carried out by the party. Only in September 2012 was Bo expelled from the Communist Party and the file handed over to state authorities for prosecution.

This train of events serves as a reminder of the context in which China's judicial system operates. Whatever the transparency of proceedings in court, or the professionalism of judges and lawyers, the party's 'leadership' of judicial work means that politically important cases are often subject to direction from the party apparatus. 

Popular, not elite, politics is at stake

The Bo case has often been presented as a story of turbulence and factional infighting at the top of the party. But in November 2012 the party delivered a clear leadership transition at the top of both party and military from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping, with the government handover in March this year. With the new team firmly in place, the transparency accorded to Bo's trial demonstrates confidence among the leadership, not division. 

Political challenges lie not at the top of the party, but in the ability of the party leadership to achieve legitimacy among the wider public. The revelations in the Bo case, from last spring and up to and including the trial, have increased levels of public cynicism about the behaviour of senior officials. Posts on China's social media will provide glimpses of the wider response to the trial; popular opinion is likely to be divided – as it was when Bo was still a serving official, and has remained since his removal from office. 

Given that the party seeks to present itself as being 'responsive' to public concerns, the main political implications of the trial will be seen in the impact it has on the leadership's credibility, not in elite politics. It is that imperative, not judicial reform, which explains what we have been allowed to see of the trial. 

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It is one of the tritest statements about politics in China, one sometimes heard from the mouths of retired senior diplomats: 'all the Communist Party of China cares about is power.' Things like this make it clear that whatever the key qualities that senior diplomats in most cultures need, some capacity for deeper questioning and reflection is not amongst them. 

Functionally, of course, the statement is right. The Communist Party is focused on power, and regards a monopoly on power as its key objective. But there are many different kinds of power, and many different ways to exercise it. And for a perfect illustration of this, the fall and sentencing of Bo Xilai offers great insights. 

Destined for politics

Had there been a menu of the things that the most perfectly placed leader of the Communist Party needed in the second decade of the twenty first century to be promoted and successful, then Bo had it: sterling elite family links in a highly tribal and networked system through his father, Bo Yibo, one of the great founding immortals; excellent provincial leadership records, in both Liaoning and then Chongqing, in a system where the road to Beijing lies through China's provinces; great charisma and communicative ability, shown in the way he managed to impress visiting foreign dignitaries and in the disgruntled sounds that came from some members of the public after his fall. 

But beyond all these, Bo had something much more important, and much rarer in Chinese modern politics: a political vision which differentiated him from his colleagues. It was this, perhaps more than anything else, that meant when they had the weapons to attack, his enemies, who were numerous and highly threatened by his individualistic behaviour, could go for the kill. 

Modern China is blighted by a great contradiction. It is in one moment both rich and poor. This has been widely acknowledged, both inside and outside the country. Its status as a rich poor country creates great challenges for policy makers and politicians. It is one they have been addressing through creating more access to public goods, more empowerment policies through investment in education and poverty relief, and more focus on addressing the urban and rural divide. Bo's prescription however was a uniquely popularist one. His social housing campaign in Chongqing was the most sustained effort to allow citizens in a city in China to have a realistic shot at being homeowners. He looked precariously close to threatening some immense areas of vested interest in the construction sector, and his anti-mafia campaign, while brutal and controversial, had an element that appealed to a popularist sense of social justice. At least this time, many thought, a government leader was taking on people who were dabbling in their own form of violence rather than picking on migrants and rural protestors. 

Bo made policy attack on inequality part of his persona in Chongqing, and in effect turned the tables on those who had lobbied for him to be sent there in 2007 as a means to sideline him. He made national and international headlines, and, it should be remembered, secured vociferous support from visiting national leaders, amongst them a highly enthusiastic Xi Jinping who went to Chongqing in 2010 and gave the city a ringing endorsement – and, by association, Bo's style of leadership. 

For all the court drama and dark intrigue on show in Jinan in August, the criminal charges that were brought against Bo cannot deflect from the power issues above. Power in China is not the uniform, never-changing monolithic entity or quality that diplomats lazily refer to – but something like a form of energy, or a currency, which can mutate, change, and dissipate in ways which are often hard, and sometimes even impossible, to understand. 

Downfall

The final image of Bo is of a man allowed a voice one final time to defend himself on the narrow criminal charges. It was also of someone who knew that on the bigger political issues he had been brought down by, there was no point in trying to speak out. His political death sentence had been delivered during this fall from grace the year before. Someone weaned, nurtured, and trained to exercise power had what they most desired and felt suited for taken away when it was just within their reach. Since then, there was little else to do but tidy up. And that, in Jinan, is precisely what happened. 

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China’s leaders set out their intention to push forward with policy reform following the Third Plenum. The full decision released on 15 November makes clear the aim to loosen constraints on the market, and suggests a dilution of state-owned enterprise influence. A new national security committee could also lead to greater policy integration between domestic security and international affairs.

The Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th Central Committee took place in Beijing from 9−12 November. Initial reactions based on the communiqué released on the last day of the meeting were mixed. However, on 15 November the authorities published the detailed decision approved by the plenum, and an explanation given to the plenum by Party General Secretary Xi Jinping – in which he acknowledged major problems facing China.

These documents make the implications of the plenum much clearer. In sum, it offers a clear political signal that as China’s fifth-generation Party leadership enters its second year, it is intent on taking forward a ‘comprehensive deepening of reform’ across a wide range of issues. As an indication of the importance of this, a new high-level ‘leading small group’ will be established to coordinate and oversee this process. The decision spells out various new measures, and reiterates many which are already part of the government’s agenda.

More market in the economy

The most important material is on the economy, where the decision makes clear that the leadership envisages a ‘decisive’ role for market forces, and the establishment of ‘fair and equal’ competition in the economy. This will provide a guiding principle for policy-making over the coming years.

One of the ways of achieving this is to reorganize the functions of government. Here the decision reiterates the themes which the government has been working on since Premier Li Keqiang took over in March this year, namely reducing or removing the need for government approvals to businesses, freeing up the investment environment, and allowing businesses and the market to take the lead unless there is a strong reason for government intervention. Better governance is a wider theme of the decision, covering the judicial system and reforms to the party’s disciplinary organs which would clarify leadership and accountability in anti-corruption investigations.

SOE reform

A possible impediment to market reforms is the power of China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and the original communiqué gave the impression that nothing much would be done about SOEs. However, the ability of these so-called ‘vested interests’ to stymie market reforms has been weakened by the targeting of a number of senior SOE-related cadres in the party’s latest anti-corruption campaign, which began at the end of 2012.

Further, the detailed decision suggests further reforms are in the offing. Although the relevant section of the document begins by restating the leading role for state ownership, a series of subsequent policy aims could serve to dilute it, such as ensuring equality in property rights protection and competition; developing mixed (state and non-state) ownership through cross-shareholding and bringing private capital into state-led projects; shifting from managing SOEs to managing state investments in enterprises; better supervision of SOEs which operate in natural monopolies; and removing administrative monopolies.

International affairs

The decision talks about further opening of China’s economy, but the vast majority of the issues covered in the decision are domestic in nature, and announcements such as a further relaxation of birth control policies have attracted most attention. Even the points on military and defense issues relate more to internal management than external capacity.

There was, however, one announcement which could have important implications for China’s foreign policy, which will be watched carefully outside China, the establishment of a ‘national security committee’. Xi said that this was being set up in response to external pressures to protect national sovereignty, security and development. He also cited internal pressures to maintain political security and social stability. It is too early to judge what the exact remit of this body will be, but it could lead to greater policy coordination and integration between domestic security issues and international affairs, at a time when China is playing a more important role across the international spectrum.

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On 3 March, 14 members of the UN Security Council denounced the 15th member, Russia, in unprecedentedly strong terms for the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and use of military intimidation. Even China followed suit.

The Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, who is used to getting his way in the Security Council, was dumbfounded. With surprising confidence, Churkin had asked for the emergency discussion over Ukraine. Each of his arguments was swiftly dismissed as inacceptable with regard to international law, or in bad faith. He got his way with a shameful nyet to Security Council resolutions on Syria, but not here.

The Russian state has been facing growing criticism from many governments and multilateral organizations since it launched an armed incursion into Crimea. NATO, the OSCE, the EU and the Council of Europe have condemned Russia’s resort to military force in Crimea. Sanctions are being discussed very seriously. And the economic and financial backlash is hurting the Russian currency, treasury and major corporations. The Kremlin has stumbled on international legal norms, which it wrongly believed it could interpret in its own free manner, with the support of China.

On 4 March, President Putin chose to express himself on Ukraine, at last. He looked nervous even though he was addressing a small and carefully selected group of young journalists for a ‘discussion-like press conference’. He told an odd story of the war he had threatened everyone with, but had never intended to wage. He repeated arguments that Churkin had already lost in New York the day before. And, with his never-abating desire to rewrite recent history, he condemned both Ukraine’s independence and the Orange Revolution of 2004.

He kept changing his mind about deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich’s position. He first said that Yanukovich was ‘politically dead’, but later justified Russian military ‘protection’ of Crimea’s population with Yanukovich’s supposed written request to Moscow on 1 March. Such a pretext is less convincing to the US and Europe by the day, just like Yanukovych’s use of a hastily passed anti-terrorism law to attempt to justify his order to shoot at civilian protesters on the Maidan. Today, Yanukovich is a former despot on the run. The Kremlin’s propaganda has backfired.

Negotiation is now beginning to reassert itself over confrontation. The Russian and Ukrainian governments have just renewed a fragile communication line. Kyiv and Simferopol are setting up a commission to discuss a common strategy out of the military standoff, and the status of the autonomous republic of Crimea in the Ukrainian state. The war scare is not quite over, but it now looks clear that Moscow bears the responsibility for raising the stakes all the way to the brink of armed struggle, with civilians as potential victims. Most powers, together with international organizations, agree that Russia’s behaviour has been dangerous and that the new interim Ukrainian government is legitimate.

The priority, now that armed violence is abating, is quick and robust support to the Ukrainian economy and society. And, as a necessary corollary, Western governments will have to devote time to helping the Russian president save face and stay quiet behind the Kremlin walls.

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Professor John Ikenberry will examine the challenges to global order that are posed by the rise of China and current shifts in global power. He will argue that a liberal-oriented international order, as championed by the United States and Europe over the last century, remains the best hope for stability and growth in the 21st century.

Professor Ikenberry will contend that, while non-Western rising states seek greater voice and authority in the global system, they – perhaps surprisingly – still embrace the basic principles and institutions of liberal world order. Thus, the United States and Europe have powerful incentives to work together to reform the world’s governance institutions to accommodate new stakeholders and tackle problems of rising economic and security interdependence.

ASK A QUESTION: Send questions for the speaker by email to questions@chathamhouse.org or using #askCH on Twitter. A selection will be put to him during the event.

This event will be followed by a reception.

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This event will present the findings of the Transatlantic Academy’s new report, Liberal Order in a Post-Western World, which examines the future of international liberal order in a world shaped by the rise of emerging powers and a transatlantic community dealing with internal challenges. Produced by collaboration between scholars from Europe and North America, it recommends ways to build an enduring rules-based order for the 21st century.

This report serves as a record of the inaugural London Conference on Globalization and World Order, convened by Chatham House on 2–3 June 2014 at Lancaster House in London.

The London Conference has three aims: to be comprehensive in debating how best to manage the profound economic and political rebalancing taking place across the world; to go behind the headlines and debate the trends underlying and connecting current events; and to build an international community of experts with a shared understanding of the major challenges accompanying globalization.

This inaugural conference was fortunate to draw together high-quality speakers for each session, who offered perspectives reflecting their geographic and sectoral diversity. It benefited enormously from the ideas for themes, speakers and participants suggested by its steering committee. The conference would not have been possible without the generous support of its two founding partners – Accenture and Chevron – and its supporting sponsors – Bloomberg and Rio Tinto – as well as the generous cooperation that we received from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in hosting the event at the historic Lancaster House in St James’s. And the quality of the debate, insights and ideas generated over the course of the conference was driven largely by the input from its 200 participants. Steering committee members, sponsors and participants are all listed in the next section, along with speakers’ details and the conference programme.

The report itself opens with a short essay which explores one of the main conclusions of the conference: the loss of trust that appears to be permeating relationships between governments, and between governments and their citizens, as a result of the pressures they are all under from the process of globalization. This is followed by the key insights from each of the five main sessions of the conference on 3 June.

The final section brings together the five papers written by members of Chatham House’s in-house research teams in advance of the conference in order to stimulate participants’ thinking. Even following an eventful six months since these were written, their insights and proposals retain an important salience for the future.

We look forward to hosting the second London Conference on 1–2 June 2015.

Robin Niblett
Director 

The unprecedented victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi, in India’s general election was a milestone in the recent history of India, leaving a single party with a majority in parliament for the first time in 25 years and the ruling coalition with a clear mandate. Manoj Ladwa, who worked on Modi’s election campaign, will provide his insights into the campaign and assess why it worked so well. 

The panel will consider the policy implications of the election results and, among other issues, provide insights into how this might shape India’s business outlook and foreign policy over the next five years. 

The stunning victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in elections to Delhi’s legislative assembly on 7 February is clearly causing reverberations around India’s political establishment, and has been widely interpreted as the end of Narendra Modi’s honeymoon period. While it is not a rejection of the prime minister’s development agenda, it highlights the reality that his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has built previous electoral victories on a divided opposition.  Its implications may well spread far beyond Delhi.

Sensing Modi’s likely ascendency, many Western countries expended energy in courting him in the run-up to last year’s election. For the previous decade, many had ostracized Modi for his response to the 2002 riots that occurred in Gujarat while he was chief minister (CM). The belief that Modi was the likely prime minister, coupled with the desire to strengthen relations with India, as well as the fact that he had been cleared of complicity in the riots in each court case, meant that past concerns were put to one side. Underpinning this recalibration was a belief that Modi was a changed man; the earlier firebrand had transformed into a managerial technocrat, focusing on development issues — providing power to farmers for instance — in Gujarat.

The 2014 general election campaign did little to change that impression. The BJP’s success was built on a promise of development — house-building, access to sanitation and so forth. Progress has understandably been slower than many would have hoped. But the Delhi election does not change the fact that if successful strategies are put in place to begin delivering on promises made by, say, the third year of the current parliament, Modi may well be able to preside over a 10-year transformation of India.

Modi has also been wooing foreign investment. His bonhomie with foreign leaders, whether Chinese or American, is a powerful signal that India is open for business. India’s economic boom in the middle of the last decade was driven in part by positive investor sentiment. The subsequent realization that ‘red tape’ was still an impediment to business helped drive the slowdown. Recreating a feel-good wave could well boost economic growth; if it coincided with better governance, it could even become self-sustainable.

The Delhi election doesn’t change this, either. It reduces Modi’s air of invincibility and will mean that he faces genuine opposition, admittedly from a chief minister rather than in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. The fact that it is India’s capital will give new Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal much greater prominence internationally than any other CM. But given that both Modi and Kejriwal won landslides on a platform that reflected an aspiration for change rather than a promise for some form of community-based redistribution gives them a (relatively) shared agenda.

If Modi’s vision is to be implemented, it necessarily requires cooperation with chief ministers. Clearly, that is easier if states are BJP-controlled, and BJP-controlled states can be used to test economic reforms. But if a vision is to be India-wide, there has to be some level of cooperation with the majority of states, which do not have BJP governments.

Until the Delhi election, the BJP had been performing strongly in recent state elections. It may well continue to do so and edge closer to a majority in the upper house of parliament, the Rajya Sabha. But one takeaway from both the general election and the Delhi election is that the BJP is far from a majority party. It won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha with a little over 30 per cent of the vote. Its vote was concentrated geographically, and the opposition was divided. In the Delhi election, it won 32 per cent of the vote. The obvious takeaway is that a divided opposition benefits the BJP. If the economy booms, more parties are likely to want to join hands with the BJP. If it does not, and if the opposition was united (admittedly, a very big if), the BJP will struggle to win two terms.

An alternative takeaway is that the social base of the BJP needs to be widened. The reaction to US President Barack Obama’s recent speech, in which he mentioned the need for religious tolerance, suggests sensitivity towards communal issues. Delhi witnessed a number of small-scale communal incidents — including vandalism against churches — in the run-up to the state election. If such incidents were replicated in the run-up to the Bihar election later this year, the outcome may well be much worse.

Any switch towards a more Hindutva-focused agenda would seem likely to encourage the consolidation of non-BJP parties. A serious outbreak of communal violence while Modi is PM will be bad for India, but also troubling for the West. Having portrayed himself in a presidential manner, Modi would struggle not to take some responsibility.

Thus, sticking with a development agenda must be imperative. The Delhi election should be seen as a blip for the BJP, a demonstration of the value Indian voters place on development and reinforce the need to focus on delivering that development. While voters may be getting impatient, what’s important is where India stands at the time of the next election.

This article was originally published in the Indian Express.

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The speaker will argue that Chinese foreign policy should be viewed as an extension of domestic policy to a degree not seen in other countries. China's foreign policy aims to support domestic growth and employment, must be aligned with nationalist and narratives of ‘rejuvenation’ and the ‘China Dream’, and must help dilute hostile foreign values. The ‘One Belt, One Road’ project, also known as the ‘New Silk Road’, exemplifies this. The speaker will illustrate its origins and development, discuss how it promotes the Communist Party’s domestic agenda, as well as look at (secondary) geostrategic aims and difficulties. Finally, he will look at the lessons for Europe, and why and how this Chinese initiative should be welcomed.

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It has become routine for China’s leaders to use high profile international events as a means of projecting a preferred image of what China stands for and how it will act as  a great power, one that is perhaps now second only to the US in the league table of global powers. So it is no surprise that Xi Jinping has used his interventions at the UN development summit and his address to the General Assembly to showcase China’s growing role as a global aid actor, and to call for greater ‘democratization’ of global governance institutions (or, in other words, a greater role and say for China and other developing countries). China’s alleged and self-proclaimed (and challenged) predilection for peace, a desire to build a ‘new type’ of (vaguely defined) international relations, and support for the UN as the sole arbiter of when sovereignty might possibly be put aside (instead of the US or a coalition of the willing) are also now relatively well-established and rehearsed Chinese positions.

In addition to wielding China’s financial power in support of this national image projection, Xi’s activities also represent a move towards mobilizing discursive power (话语权) as well. To date, and for a number of years, this discursive power has been primarily deployed in a defensive manner, with the aim of denying the supposed universal nature of many of the norms and principles of the international order. These norms, as articulated by both Chinese government officials and some supportive academic scholars, are not universal at all, but merely the product of a small number of Western countries’ histories, philosophies and developmental trajectories. So, in this formulation, while it is important to have a common set of principles and responsibilities as the basis for international interactions, each country should be free to develop its own nation-specific definitions based on its own unique histories and contexts. And it is only these Chinese-inspired definitions and aspirations – of human rights, for example, or development – that China should be judged against.

But this position has changed under Xi, with China’s leaders increasingly keen on promoting Chinese understandings and definitions as the basis for international debates and international action. Hot on the heels of Chinese attempts to take a leading role in defining the basis for global cyber diplomacy,  China is now seeking to shape the way that development is defined and understood – which of course has massive implications for how development, thus defined, might be attained.

Leading on development, missing on security

Xi’s willingness – or should that be desire – to establish Chinese potential global leadership was less apparent when it came to solving the major security challenges of the day. To be sure, there was talk about the need for new ways of dealing with insecurity that recognize the consequences of globalization and that no country can solve problems on its own – including, presumably, the United States. The pledge of more peacekeepers will cement China’s position as one of the world’s major contributors to UN overseas activities, and the promise of a military assistance fund to the African Union shows that Beijing really is an important security actor beyond its own borders. But when it comes to conflict in places like Syria, China seems content to maintain its back seat and allow Russia to take the lead in a crisis that is admittedly some distance from China’s own backyard. Expect a Chinese-led agenda for the G20 summit in 2016 in China that reinforces this differential willingness to assume leadership roles depending on the specific issue at hand.  

So for the time being, the aim seems to be primarily to confirm the idea that China is a new and very different type of great power; one that is a friend and supporter of those smaller developing states and emerging powers that had previously suffered from the asymmetric economic and military power of great powers in the West (or in some cases, still do). As part of this ‘difference’ a second related objective seems to be to establish China as a global leader on development issues.

But simply asserting something does not mean that it is true, and its something of an understatement to suggest that China’s pacific and non-interventionist self-identity has not been accepted by everybody, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. China’s developmental achievements have also been questioned. The response in Beijing to Hilary Clinton’s tweet that it was ‘shameless’ that Xi was co-host of a meeting on women’s rights shows that the defensive nature of Chinese policy remains in place: ‘those in the best position to judge the state of women's issues in China are Chinese people, particularly Chinese women’, according to the foreign ministry. And Clinton’s comments also show that the field of ideas is not being left open for China to do whatever it wants just yet; gaining widespread acceptance for Chinese preferences is not going to be an easy task and will likely face considerable resistance. But the suggestion here is that the world is likely to see a growing Chinese presence over the coming years not just as a global development and aid provider, but also as a putative developer of new global norms.

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It is tempting to read China's refusal in this case to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal in The Hague as the defiance of an arrogant superpower that views itself as above international law. No doubt many in Manila, Washington and elsewhere are purveying this view. But there is more here than meets the eye.

For decades, Beijing has complained that the global order was forged in an era when China was weak and the rules of the game are rigged against it.

But this lament is more difficult to sustain in relation to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China helped negotiate in the 1970s and early 1980s. Beijing signed the treaty as soon as it was opened for signature in 1982 and ratified it in 1996.

The Philippines initiated this arbitration against China in 2013 as part of a long-running dispute over rights in the South China Sea, including over the Spratly Islands (known as the 'Nansha Islands' in China) and surrounding maritime areas. 

Under the treaty, China is not obliged to defend the case but this is no bar to proceedings and it remains legally bound by the award. From a legal perspective, its refusal to participate is thus a risky move, all the more so since the ruling is likely to have legal ramifications for China's highly charged maritime disputes with other neighbours such as Vietnam and Malaysia.

It is well known that the legal proceedings launched by the Philippines sparked a contest of ideas in Beijing. Behind closed doors, some Chinese international lawyers argued that China should prove its commitment to the international rule of law by vigorously fighting its corner in the arbitration. The defeat of these liberal voices is usually interpreted as an inevitable effect of the nationalists' grip on power under President Xi Jinping.

In a significant concession to those on the losing side of the argument, however, China published a position paper setting out its objections to the jurisdiction of the tribunal and formally conveyed this to the tribunal which treated it as ‘effectively constituting a plea on jurisdiction’.

This novel form of ‘non-participating participation’ must be seen against the backcloth of a strategic ambition by China to develop a greater mastery of international law. At an important meeting just two months earlier, the Communist Party called for China to strengthen its ‘discourse power and influence in international legal affairs’ and use legal methods to safeguard its ‘sovereignty, security and development interests’.

Our research team at Chatham House has been tracking impressive steps by China to realize this goal, including new government decision-making machinery designed to promote compliance with international law, a hiring spree of international lawyers and new advisory committee for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, promotion of scholarship and efforts to show norm leadership especially in ‘new domains’ of international law such as cyber law, and a training programme to share growing Chinese international law expertise with the global South.

We know from Chinese colleagues that maritime disputes are a major impetus for this drive. For years, the Chinese government has fretted about its low capabilities in the international legal field, compared with other permanent members of the UN Security Council and regional rivals such as Japan. Now, impelled by the need to protect its strategic interests in the South China Sea and elsewhere, it is doing something about it.

It may seem paradoxical in light of its bullish attacks on the Philippines and even the tribunal itself, but China's boycott of the arbitration should also be seen as a manifestation of its low confidence in its own capacities in the realm of international law. Speculation is rife that the leadership lacks faith in its ability to convince the tribunal of the legal validity of its controversial ‘nine dash line’ demarcation of China's rights in the South China Sea.  

In the arbitration and otherwise, China has avoided clarifying the precise legal basis and implications of its ‘nine dash line’ claims while sponsoring a vast industry of academic studies to support its position.

In the meantime, China is playing to its strengths, including its deep pockets, in pursuing an extrajudicial approach. An audacious programme of land reclamation and militarization of atolls and escalating patrols and exercises in disputed territories is a clear effort to alter ‘the facts on the water’. And in recent months it has choreographed statements of political support for its South China Sea claims from a motley crew of states with economic ties to China.

While China's rejection of the South China Sea arbitration is true to form for a powerful state that, like its great rival the United States, is generally ill-disposed towards binding international dispute resolution processes, it is not inconceivable that this approach will give way when China becomes more confident in its ability to play and win at ‘law fare’, as we are already seeing in the context of World Trade Organization disputes. Until then, in time-honoured fashion, Beijing is biding its time, plugging its skills gap and hoping it can shake off mounting reputational damage from its petulant spurning of these proceedings.

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The arbitration between the Philippines and China on the dispute in the South China Sea is coming to an end. The Permanent Court of Arbitration is to issue its decision on 12 July. This meeting will discuss the notable points of the tribunal’s award and the next steps. 

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

The ruling by an arbitral tribunal of five members based in The Hague was simple and devastating. It declares that ‘China’s claims to historic rights… with respect to the maritime areas of the South China Sea encompassed by the relevant part of the “nine-dash line” are contrary to the [The UN] Convention [on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS]’. This is a result that Southeast Asia’s maritime countries have long sought. The way is now clear to resolve all the disputes in the region, if the participants choose to do so.

For decades, countries around the South China Sea lived under the shadow of a quasi-territorial claim that no one really understood. What did the U-shaped, nine-dashed line marked on Chinese maps actually mean? In 2009, the Chinese government attached a copy of the map to an official submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf and the region became alarmed. For the first time, it seemed that China was serious about asserting a claim to all the land and water inside the line.

On Tuesday that claim was dismissed as entirely incompatible with international law. Moreover, the Arbitral Tribunal ruled that not one of the Spratly Islands qualifies as an ‘island’. This ruling is at least as significant: it means none of the features in the archipelago are entitled to an exclusive economic zone. Theoretically it should now be simple to resolve all the maritime disputes in the southern part of the South China Sea. The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines can, in principle, draw lines up to 200 nautical miles out from their coasts and agree compromises where they overlap. China is now irrelevant to this process because its nearest coastline is simply too far away.

All the 50 or so features in the Spratly Islands that are naturally above water at high tide would be granted a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea. The resulting settlement would resemble a Swiss cheese: large areas of exclusive economic zone measured from national coastlines punctuated by a few dozen ‘bubbles’ of disputed territory. This would not resolve the disputes about which country is the rightful owner of those ‘bubbles’ but it would settle the maritime disputes in the sea around them.

Of course, there are still wrinkles. Not least is the Philippines claim to the Malaysian province of Sabah in northern Borneo. This means that, for the time being, those two countries can’t settle the maritime boundary between them. They could, nonetheless, agree how far it projects offshore.

The bigger problem will be China’s attitude. Its response to the tribunal’s ruling has been angry but curiously misdirected. State media have focused their ire on questions of territorial sovereignty – even though the tribunal was barred from even considering this subject. China’s territorial claims to the rocks of the Spratly Islands are entirely unaffected by Tuesday’s ruling. There must be separate processes to resolve those questions.

China has many interests in the South China Sea – including defence, trade routes, fisheries and hydrocarbons – so it’s not surprising that it pursues whatever approach it thinks practical in order to protect them. However, the whole purpose of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was to create an international order that defended the rights of countries to exploit the resources off their own coasts without threat from other states further away. China was a full participant in the negotiations between 1973 and 1982 that created UNCLOS and, at that time, was a strong defender of the rights of coastal countries.

While it may feel that it has lost out from this week’s ruling, China has much to gain from a strong community of regional order in the South China Sea. Most Southeast Asian countries remain alarmed by China’s intentions − which is why, in the past few years, they have been strengthening their ties with the United States and increasing military spending. China’s wider interests would benefit from a de-escalation of this tension. Reassuring its neighbours would give them less reason to rely on the US.

Putting a new maritime order in place, based upon UNCLOS and commitments between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, would be a major step towards this. It would also bring many associated benefits – not least cooperation to protect the region’s fish stocks, which are facing disastrous collapse. The first step is accepting the implications of Tuesday’s ruling.

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