China's calls for South China Sea talks face challenges

BEIJING -- Amid China's outrage over an international tribunal that rejected its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the country is using new language some experts said shows Beijing wants to be more flexible. But it is too late?

China has been on a public-relations offensive to discredit The Hague-based tribunal that last week handed the Philippines a massive victory in its challenge to Beijing's claims to much of the sea.

Buried in the outpouring of statements and diplomats' diatribes, however, is a new stance on cooperating with the Philippines and other claimants in jointly developing the waters' rich fishing stocks and potential wealth of other natural resources.

"China is ready to discuss with countries concerned about provisional arrangements pending final settlement of the dispute," the country's top diplomat, state councilor Yang Jiechi, said last week. Yang did not describe specifics of the arrangements but said they would include joint development for "mutual benefits."

Other official statements also have said China is willing to enter into "provisional arrangements of a practical nature," phrasing that echoes language used in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS. Under UNCLOS, such "provisional arrangements" set aside issues of sovereignty and promote joint development of resources, with the understanding cooperation would neither bolster nor undermine a state's claims. Several Chinese analysts said it marked a new approach for China.

"It is the first time that the idea of provisional arrangements has been proposed as a policy," said Zhu Feng, executive director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of South China Sea of Nanjing University.

Zhu said such arrangements under UNCLOS could expand the scope of possible activities in which China and other claimants could work together to include not just oil exploitation but the development of fisheries, tourism and other resources.

For years, China has touted the idea of jointly developing the South China Sea with other claimants, but its insistence the other party first recognize Chinese sovereignty over the features in question posed a major stumbling block, analysts said.

Chinese analysts said Beijing is offering such arrangements to demonstrate flexibility and play down the thorny issue of sovereignty. Other analysts said China is likely under pressure to head off attempts by other countries that claim parts of the South China Sea to replicate the Philippines' legal success.

China's main challenge is last week's ruling gives other parties little incentive to talk.

"The problem is that according to the ruling, China only enjoys a very small part of the territorial sea, therefore laying a foundation for other claimants not to seek joint development," said Chen Xiangmiao, a researcher at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies.