That's not cricket.
and other Anglo-witticisms about the sheer shittiness of everybody's South China Sea sovereignty claims
While this recent podcast performance may seem like a perfectly normal professional engagement, please allow me to reassure you that it is not (entirely) serious.
“I think that every single coastal state’s claims to islands in the South China Sea are shitty. They are all kind of bullshit, they are all kind of made up.”
That’s because, as the wheels fly off the global maritime order that is the subject of my book, “China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order” (Yale 2023), I am taking stock of questions like: “what’s the point?” and “what the fuck?” in subtle ways that had never before occurred to me.
So, when I recently and unironically took the genuine privilege to join two very fine and statesmanlike experts on the Indo-Pacific to discuss it live, I tried to take on board, emotionally as well as analytically, what I understand to be the core problématique of the eponymous pod.
After all, “why should we care about” anything at this point?!
Anyhow. I took Ray’s gracious invitation to be an additional invitation to reflect on why we should care about what China does at all — whether in the South China Sea, in the Taiwan Strait, on TikTok, in our drones, and so on.
Some of the wonkier, wilder points you’ll catch if you jump in at the point queued in the video above; and then please do listen to the rest at >1.5x if you find yourself mildly interested in what imho is some fairly sexy geopolitical subject-matter:
Contrary to popular belief, China is not at all outside the system of international law, and especially not the law of the sea. But pushing hard at the edges of that system, China’s practices make it impossible for other states to realize any of their legitimate, lawful claims (*sovereign rights to EEZ resources, especially*).
Wait that one was kind of boring. Sorry, try the next one:
China’s claims, especially the 9-dashed line, are extravagant. But you know who also has extravagant claims in the SCS? Everybody else!
Then I ask whether this is a PG-13 show. (It’s not.)
“I think that every single coastal state’s claims to islands in the SCS are shitty. They are all kind of bullshit, they are all kind of made up.”
Why 有效控制 (effective control) is 9/10ths of the law, as far as Beijing is concerned. That’s why they can declare a 30 nautical mile cordon around Scarborough Shoal and call it an aquarium!
And most importantly, I raise the question that’s been gnawing at you since you started reading this missive: why? And what does cricket tell us about geopolitical conflict that we don’t already know?
Or more specifically, why has the Anglo-American maritime world order that has prevailed, more or less, for the last 200 years, ceased to play cricket together?
Is it because China is not a cricket-playing nation and doesn’t care to play by our rules?
Is it because rules just don’t matter? Maybe we really have been deluding ourselves ever since Woodrow Wilson deluded himself into thinking that America could or would protect international law and freedom of navigation and human rights and so on for very long.
And, as ever — dress British; think Yiddish; buy kosher direct from academic presses:
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300256475/chinas-law-of-the-sea/
