Acrimonious.
In cooled debate.
Evan Ng
09 June 2022
The UNSC convened to tackle the issues of tension in the South China Sea, such as problems regarding international law, fishing, and militarization. Owing to the much criticized function of veto powers that the five permanent members of the UNSC hold, debate has been naught but circular.
The council is divided into two main blocs – one consists of the countries China, Russia, Gabon, Kenya and Mexico. The other bloc, consisting of the rest of the countries, including the UK. A key difference that sets these groups apart are their methods of tackling these issues. The Chinese bloc wishes to utilize bilateral agreements to solve these issues while the international bloc hopes to use multilateral talks.
The international bloc defends their stance in the belief that international law should be upheld, and Chinese foreign policy should not be above the rule of law. They have reportedly taken steps toward negotiation but the Russian Federation is closed to that.
Russia defends that they agree with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and its clauses, but feel that the matter does not require internationalization to be put to rights.
The People's Republic of China agrees – they believe there is no need for multilateral talks as the issue is already in a region. They also have defended their violation of UNCLOS in operating within Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), arguing that UNCLOS is ambiguous and vague and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) unjustly ruled in the tribunal as China had been absent.
However, The UK and its allies in the international bloc feel that bilateral talks have been ineffective. “When it comes to ASEAN (Association of South East Asian nations), they cannot act in anything but a bloc, hence the dispute cannot be resolved without China being strong-armed due to the economic interests that ASEAN must consider in the dispute. If smaller states dare to rebuff China, they would bully these states into accepting their demands.”
It is axiomatic that this is hogwash. What the UK has said is naught but baseless propaganda.
The bilateral agreements, unlike the international bloc’s belief, would, as it always has, adhere to the international court of law. Every actor’s voices would be heard equally. China even offered freedom of trade to nations that accede to their claims over the South China Sea region, but the snowflakes that comprise the UK believe China is simply bribing these nations. It is justifiably offensive and worth condemning that the UK’s perception of China is as so abhorrently demeaning.
Looking past that, countries have been criticized for failing to stick to their stance. Countries form allegiance to the permanent members of the UNSC mindlessly, losing sight of the meaning of sovereignty as they fall victim to the allure of economic preservation.
The delegates, akin to headless chickens, being given a lecture on stance.
