Lol.. International space station launches and stays in space for 20 years.. Still kicking.
China makes one and 4 years later, it's falling out of the sky...
Hope it doesn't land on my place..lol.. 8 tons of "oh shit"...
China keeps puffing it's chest out like they have been, they might get into some deep shitnet.
In July 2016, the tribunal backed the Philippines' case, saying China had violated the Philippines' sovereign rights.
China had boycotted the proceedings, and called the ruling "ill-founded". It says it will not be bound by it.
Basically they don't care what anyone says...
It sounds a little strange to say this but unilateral is not necessarily "illegal" in the eyes of international law. The tribunal represents a separate, private method of
arbitration and isn't some kind of all-binding court. It isn't backed by the United Nations and isn't legally binding on China.
Saw a recent analogy on Quora about this that cleared some things up for me; if we recall how justice systems work, there must be an enforcer/method of enforcement in order for a ruling to be effective. In a private, civil claim for example, even if the court rules in favour of a certain party and thus gives that party the right to enforce the decision (whether it be money or whatever), if that party decides not to enforce, the ruling is next to useless. With this tribunal's ruling, there is no enforcer, even if we assume that the ruling was legally binding.
So basically, there is no reason for China to listen to what the tribunal says. Popular culture and games like COD lead us to believe that the mere mention of the word "Hague" indicates some sort of all-powerful authority that is binding on every nation in the world. That's not how it is here.
Not saying that I think China embarking on aggressive unilateral expansion in SEA is "right" or a good idea stability-wise, and it is true that it threatens "weaker" Southeast Asian countries' sovereignty, even with countries such as Malaysia that don't have
such a problem with China as the Philippines does due to their cooperation with China. It also isn't correct, however, to give significant (or any whatsoever) legal weight to this decision by the tribunal. What's happening in SEA is not the same as what's happening in Ukraine, and so the consequences will be appropriately different as well.
-- What *could be* positive is that the new president Duterte has hinted at possible cooperation with China
if China stops its claims (presumably only the ones affecting the Philippines), which is a definite departure from the past, completely hostile stance of the Philippines government towards China. That is, if China decides to let up, which I highly doubt will be the case. We can hope, though. Duterte is much more skeptical of the US and willing to talk to China, and reminds me a little bit of South Korean leadership in recent years. Although the West likes to believe that it has a wholeheartedly committed ally in SK like it does in JP, SK is more of a middleman than anything.
On the topic of their space programme, to be blunt,
what did you expect? When the US put Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon in 1969, China was still poor as hell, recovering from the Great Leap Forward, and in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. For those who aren't familiar with those events, the former was a massive famine beyond the scale of most Western readers' comprehension, and the latter was all-out social anarchy and hell on earth. China missed out on most of the advancements made in recent years, and wasn't a part of the extensive US - ESA -
Russia cooperation on space exploration and the International Space Station. They've always been doing their own thing (not that anyone would want to work with them, given all the fear about cyberattacks, surveillance and China stealing Western secrets), without any prior experience, so
what did you expect?
Re China ( and PRNK ) even Japan is now considering having its own nuclear Based DEFENSIVE DETERRENT
Hard as it may be to the collective Japanese conscious there is a growing consensus that they cannot totally rely on the USA and that they may at some point in the Future have to have their own DEFENSIVE Nuclear Based DETERRENT
Not sure if serious
If so that would be a pretty serious unilateral change to the balance of power in SEA
Though if they are just "considering it" then it won't be anything much. Everyone knows that virtually everyone in China hates Japan and virtually everyone in Japan hates China, but what most people aren't aware of is the two have the closest economic links of just about any country in the region (despite being "political enemies", and neither country is run by flamboyant, provocative idiots (Kim family) so nothing serious is going to become of it. Economic relations != military affairs, but people need to remember that there isn't an active state of war between the two countries. Diplomatic relations have been good between China and SK, and have taken a turn for the better the past few decades between China and JP.
@dorsetknob About that ground-based-laser thing, IIRC the US was the first to renounce its agreed compliance with the ABM Treaty, but I think the Outer Space Treaty still stands (though would it fall under the OST??). It does conjure up memories of Reagan's Star wars, which was shut down mostly on expense but also because of what would be massive political/strategic consequences between US and Russia, so yeah, you're right, I don't think we'll be seeing that anytime soon.
