Week Nine - 南海仲裁

PRC’s South China Sea claims rejected

An arbitration court ruled yesterday that China has no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea and has breached the Philippines’ sovereign rights with its actions, infuriating Beijing, which dismissed the case as a farce.

A defiant China, which boycotted the hearings at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, vowed again to ignore the ruling, and said its armed forces would defend its sovereignty and maritime interests.

Xinhua news agency said shortly before the ruling was announced that a Chinese civilian aircraft had successfully tested two new airports in the disputed Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said a new guided-missile destroyer was formally commissioned at a naval base on Hainan, which has responsibility for the South China Sea.

“This award represents a devastating legal blow to China’s jurisdictional claims in the South China Sea,” Ian Storey of Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute said. “China will respond with fury, certainly in terms of rhetoric and possibly through more aggressive actions at sea.”

The US, which China has accused of fueling tensions and militarizing the region with patrols and exercises, urged parties to comply with the legally binding ruling and avoid provocations.

“The decision today by the tribunal in the Philippines-China arbitration is an important contribution to the shared goal of a peaceful resolution to disputes in the South China Sea,” US Department of State spokesman John Kirby said.

US officials have previously said they feared China might respond to the ruling by declaring an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, as it did in the East China Sea in 2013, or by stepping up its building and fortification of artificial islands.

China claims most of the energy-rich waters through which about US$5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines also have claims.

Finding for the Philippines on a number of issues, the panel said there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within its so-called “nine-dash line,” which covers almost 90 percent of the South China Sea.

It said China had interfered with traditional Philippine fishing rights at the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) and had breached the Philippines’ sovereign rights by exploring for oil and gas near the Reed Bank (Lile Bank, 禮樂灘).

None of China’s reefs and holdings in the Spratly Islands entitled it to an exclusive economic zone, it added.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the ruling, saying its people had more than 2,000 years of history in the South China Sea, that its islands did have exclusive economic zones and that it had announced to the world its “dotted line” map in 1948.

“China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea shall under no circumstances be affected by those awards,” the ministry said.

“The award is a complete and total victory for the Philippines... a victory for international law and international relations,” said Paul Reichler, lead lawyer for Manila.

Vietnam said it welcomed the ruling.

The ruling is significant, as it is the first time that a legal challenge has been brought in the dispute.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/07/13/2003650918

Who:An arbitration court
Where:South China Sea
When:yesterday(7/12)
What:ruled that China has no 
historic title over the waters of the South China Sea and has breached the Philippines’ sovereign rights with its actions
How:infuriating Beijing

keywords:
1.arbitration 仲裁
2.sovereign 具有主權的
3.maritime 海上
4.announced 宣布
5.jurisdictional 管轄權的
6.aggressive 積極行動的(侵略)
7.provocation 挑釁
8.resources 資源
9.exclusive 專屬的
10.circumstances 情況

Week Eight - 英國脫歐

Parallels between Brexit and Taiwan

By James Wang 王景弘

The British have voted to leave the EU, delivering a heavy blow to the once-popular notion of integration and to globalization. The result also reflects how much ordinary people have been affected by these trends and how they have finally decided to hit back against them.

Britain leaving the EU symbolizes a reawakening of nationalism and ordinary people’s desire to reclaim national sovereignty. People are unconvinced that they are receiving the benefits of integration and globalization, and instead feel that their national sovereignty has been eroded. They feel that they cannot devise laws and government policies based upon the needs of their own country or to solve their own problems.

Despite the result of the Brexit referendum, there was a difference of only 1.2 million votes between “Remain” and “Leave,” revealing a distinct split of opinion within the country. It is difficult to predict the hardships that lie down the road for a post-Brexit Britain, but with terrorism rampant, war refugees swamping Western countries and wealthy nations being encumbered by poorer nations, the frustration and dissatisfaction being felt by ordinary people has led them to reject control from outside governments.

Integration has long been the dominant trend in Europe, just like during the time of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), when there were those who played with semantics, hoping for “integration” with China to address the threat of “unification” and to increase economic competitiveness.

People are now turning away from the superstate model of integrating sovereign European democracies observing the rule of law on an equal footing.

Globalization has held sway for some time, but the entities it has served best have been an impoverished China — before its rise — and major Western corporations. Many ordinary people have been forced out of work by competition with cheap labor in China and are unable to change government policy to promote their own interests. They have been left with the sense that they have been exploited, both politically and economically.

The world has to deal with the new global epidemic of public anger, of the rise of the political right and of a rejection of immigrants. This has been evidenced by the unlikely rise of Donald Trump as the head of a populist political movement in the US and the rise of the far right and the Brexit vote in Europe.

Taiwan has borne the brunt of China’s magnet effect. Some financial groups have benefited from this, but ordinary people have been hit with soaring unemployment and stagnant salaries. There has been a backlash to this model of “integration” with China from the younger generation, who have sought to save their nation.

“Leave” campaigners in the Brexit referendum appealed to the British general public to allow their country to retake control of their ability to make their own laws and taxes according to the UK’s economic needs. This was, in many ways, parallel to the appeals of the Taiwanese youth, calling on Taiwanese to save their own nation.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/06/29/2003649701

Who:British
What:have voted to leave the EU
How:delivering a heavy blow to the once-popular notion of integration and to globalization

keywords:
1.nationalism 民族主義
2.national sovereignty 國家主權
3.Brexit 英國脫歐
4.referendum 公投
5.dissatisfaction 不滿意
6.competitiveness 競爭力
7.superstate 超級大國
8.semantics 語義
9.epidemic 流行
10.campaigners 運動參加者