There indeed seems to be a new norm emerging in the SCS. But it is more reflective of the new muscular US National Security Strategy and US National Defense Strategy that call for an embrace of strategic great power competition with China than of a decline of US influence in the region.
Many countries are now firmly pushing back against Chinese unilateral expansionism in the SCS. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reportedly declared that he was ready and willing to go to war with China over SCS resources. A prominent Taiwanese think tank has proposed leasing Taiwan-occupied Taiping Island to the US military. And at the 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue, the United States, India, Vietnam, France and the United Kingdom all spoke strongly against China’s assertive and destabilising actions in the SCS.
These words are being backed up by actions.
Washington disinvited Beijing to the 2018 Rim of the Pacific naval exercise on the grounds that Chinese actions in the SCS run counter to international norms and the pursuit of free and open seas. US freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) and presence operations in the SCS continue, and US defence officials are reportedly considering a more assertive program that could include longer patrols, more ships and closer surveillance of Chinese facilities.
London and Paris have joined Washington to challenge Beijing in the SCS. Both have conducted naval operations in the SCS to put pressure on China’s increased militarization of the disputed and contested waters.
Vietnam continues the modest expansion of its outposts in the Spratly Islands. With the latest construction at Ladd Reef, Hanoi has made small and incremental upgrades to 21 of its 49 outposts in recent years. The construction work also underscores a new facet of Vietnam’s military doctrine in the SCS — the employment of a maritime militia that will emulate China’s maritime militia, which China uses to enhance its presence and operations in the contested waters without provoking a military response from other countries.
Malaysia — like Vietnam and the Philippines — is embarking on a military buildup to better protect its maritime claims and interests in the SCS. Kuala Lumpur recently announced that it would upgrade its naval aircraft as well as purchase ship-based naval helicopters. The enhanced naval aviation capabilities are intended to support an ongoing comprehensive modernization of its surface fleet.
The aforementioned commentaries on the SCS also repeat some familiar Chinese perspectives on US FONOPs and US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations that require some US perspectives for a more balanced understanding of the issues.
US FONOPs are an important expression of and are recognised by international law. The purpose and intent of US FONOPs are clearly laid out in US policy, and all operations are meticulously documented and published every year. On the whole, US FONOPs challenge excessive maritime claims in the SCS, not competing sovereignty claims; do not discriminate against particular states, but rather focus on the claims that individual states assert; are deliberate in nature, but are not deliberate provocations; and contest unilateral restrictions on freedom of navigation and overflight rather than accept rhetoric.
US ISR operations — which are conducted inside other countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs) — are lawful under customary international law and Article 58 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
The Chinese argument on the permissibility of military activities in EEZs is counter to the US position. The United States believes that while coastal states under UNCLOS have the right to regulate economic activities in their EEZs, they do not have the right to regulate foreign military activities in their EEZs.
Beijing contends that military activities — such as ISR flights, maritime survey operations and military exercises — on the high seas and in EEZs are unlawful according to UNCLOS, and that it is a requirement under UNCLOS that the high seas are used only for peaceful purposes, despite itself doing exactly the opposite.
Beijing’s interpretation of UNCLOS is a minority position held by 27 states, while the vast majority of states (over 100, including all permanent United Nations Security Council members other than China) do not hold this position.
The region and the world have come to the realisation that Beijing’s actions in the SCS are dangerously undermining the extant global order that China itself has benefited from. Other countries must now be more assertive to encourage and challenge China to become a more responsible global stakeholder that contributes positively to the international system. Otherwise, Beijing will be further emboldened to expand and accelerate its campaign to control the disputed and contested strategic waterway through which trillions of dollars of global trade flows each year.
Tuan N Pham is widely published in national security affairs and international relations. The views expressed therein are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the US Government.
China has started a war along unconventional lines – it is redefining war. Salami slicing strategy is the tip of the iceberg. And human shields in the form of maritime militia is another strategy. These initiatives make even Russia holy.
Some unconventional initiatives, duly co-ordinated, are required to take on the unconventional war by China. Some possibilities are:
– Rename SCS with a name minus China. South Asian Sea sounds fine.
– Move against China at the UN by passing a resolution censuring the SCS activities by China
– Create a NATO type military alliance. The affected countries, along with US, UK & France should create a joint maritime militia titled South Asian Sea Protection Force. This entity is not country specific and can destroy Chinese assets without any one country being exclusively responsible for the act. China will definitely not nuke all the countries because one missile brings down its aircraft carrier or its oil rig. And this can be be provided enough missiles and torpedoes at subsidized prices. Whether a Patriot, Exocet or Bhramos decimated its military / commercial asset also can be camouflaged.
– Create a legal alliance to initiate legal proceedings against China in all forums and under all anti-civil acts by China – be it the ICJ or the various organs of the UN. The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling was by efforts of a single country, and China promptly pointed guns at the Philippines.
China will be rendered impotent if the enemy is indeterminate. It can bully if it can point a gun, but not a non-entity or an invisible enemy.
China has undermined the traditional rules of military engagement – to the extent of undermining the rules of civil engagement – beyond its borders.
Civil and traditional engagement protocols / procedures / norms have been undermined by China. One cannot shape iron by using butter.
History shows that China is the aggrieved party and not the war party. This is because “after WW2, Japan returned the Paracel and Spratly Islands to China in accordance with the Potsdam (1945) and Cairo (1943) Declarations signed by the Great Allies: US, UK, China and Russia, NOT to France or Vietnam.”
So it is abundantly clear that the “Salami slicing strategy”, a code-phrase first used by an errant American geopolitical analyst to demonize China, which you have copied and repeated here, was adopted by Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, when oil was discovered by ECAFE in the SCS in late 1960s.
China does not want War because she is the biggest beneficiary of Peace in the last 73 years. She has now attained the status of the second largest economy in the world (first on PPP basis since 2014) and the world’s biggest trading nation. A war can easily topple the apple cart.
If you wish to “rename SCS with a name minus China” you will need a majority vote from the 193-member UN General Assembly and I am sure they will perceive this as a frivolous, if not childish, proposition since the UN has more urgent exigencies to attend to.
Also what is to prevent other countries from demanding that the Indian Ocean be henceforth renamed the Pakistani Ocean; the Sea of Japan be renamed the Sea of Korea and the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of Texas? Where will it all end?
As for proposing that the “US, UK & France should create a joint maritime militia titled South Asian Sea Protection Force” I am sure former colonies like your own country, India (89 brutal years under the British Raj), Vietnam (67 humiliating years under the French) and the Philippines (47 submissive years under Pax Americana) will not be pleased to have their former colonial masters back in town.
No, it is not China which “has undermined the traditional rules of military engagement” because President Xi made it clear to US Defense Secretary Mattis on 27 June that China is not an expansionist nor will she seek to colonise other states.
The concern is the legitimacy of the nine dash line China claims presently. And China has acted as though the nine dash line is a done deed, by militarizing spots way off the Chinese coastline, to demonstrate its rule over the same. China had stated that the spots will not be militarized.
The nine-dash line has no coordinates and is therefore not a delimited maritime boundary. It is only an informal line that separates China’s island territories in the South China Sea from the coasts of littoral states like Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.
According to Dr Sam Bateman, a former Australian Naval Commodore with research interests in regimes for good order at sea and now a Professorial Research Fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, University of Wollongong:
“the U-shaped line is a “loose geographical shorthand to say we claim islands and features, it is not actually questioning other countries who have established exclusive economic zones inside the nine dash line, or indeed have maritime boundaries with their neighbor.”
It is not true that China is militarizing the islands or is claiming the entire South China Sea. She ratified UNCLOS in 1996 and under its provisions it is mathematically impossible to claim the entire South China Sea as other littoral states have their own 12 nm territorial seas and 200 nm EEZ, continental shelves, etc.
It is akin to saying since SCS is not the sovereign territory of any nation, China can claim the SCS through the nine dash line. China is holy by not encroaching on the EEZ of other countries, and within legitimacy to draw the nine dash line, and driving away the small countries from drilling (Vietnam) or fishing (Philipines). This also explains why China wants to discuss and have agreements with each of the small counties individually and not with all the countries jointly – it is very easy to bully. If nobody can defend the area, China claims it.
The acts reflect the intentions, invariant to the talk.
The nine dash line is a claim that China will enforce when it imagines its confident that its armed forces can enforce – the basis of the present drive of militarizing the islands. If the nine dash line can be ratified by all the countries surrounding the SCS, it will gain legitimacy.
Otherwise, the nine dash line is going to remain in the memory of all the concerned countries as Chinese hegemony. It will create barriers taller and longer than the Great Wall Of China.
You have not read a word I posted otherwise you would not be fixated with the false premise that “..China can claim the SCS through the nine dash line.”
China is a party to UNCLOS and it is mathematically impossible to claim the entire SCS. China only claims the features in the SCS which were returned to China via the Potsdam and Cairo Conference Declarations after WW2. Do your due diligence.
The Philippines has already set aside the rigged arbitral ruling and Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh announced to reporters in April that “We are ready to work with China to resolve arising issues.”
Brunei has only one claim and is willing to negotiate with China and Malaysia’s new Prime Minister said on TV that Malaysia is only claiming 4 or 5 features close to its shores. There are over 141 features in the Spratlys.
So please tell me when did the four claimants demand to discuss with China jointly or is it only a fitment of someone’s vivid imagination?
Thank you and goodbye.
1 “Hanoi has made small and incremental upgrades to 21 of its 49 outposts in recent years.”
This could be a source of future tension because history shows that after WW2, Japan returned the Paracel and Spratly Islands to China in accordance with the Potsdam (1945) and Cairo (1943) Declarations signed by the Great Allies: US, UK, China and Russia, NOT to France or Vietnam.
On 4 Sept 1958 China declared a 12nm territorial water off her coastlines and her islands in the SCS. The US, UK, Japan, France, Australia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, to name a few, did not object over China’s sovereignty claims over the Paracel and Spratly Islands.
On 14 Sept North Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Van Dong even wrote a letter to Premier Zhou Enlai to acknowledge his agreement with the 12 nm declaration. There was no dispute then.
But when ECAFE discovered oil in the South China Sea in the late 1960s it was akin to shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater. Vietnam illegally grabbed 29 features in the Spratlys, Malaysia grabbed 7, Brunei one and President Marcos grabbed 8 features on 11 June 1978, using a presidential decree 1596, which was also illegal.
China had already enunciated a policy to “Set Aside” the disputes in the SCS and share its resources a long time ago and recently the Asean claimants, including the Philippines and Brunei which has only one claim, are reported to be talking to China.
In April the foreign ministers of China and Vietnam pledged to address disputes peacefully.
China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, told reporters in Vietnam that “Both sides should abide by the basic governing principles on resolving maritime issues.”
The Vietnamese Foreign Minister, Pham Binh Minh told reporters that “We are ready to work with China to resolve arising issues.”
The other good news is that in 2017 the bilateral trade volume between China and Vietnam reached US$100 billion for the first time and in the first two months of 2018 Vietnam exported $9.4 billion worth of products to China, now Vietnam’s biggest export market, posting a year-on-year rise of 24.4 per cent.
So the claim by the writer that Vietnam is pushing back against China is flawed.
2 “US FONOPs are an important expression of and are recognised by international law”.
In the Oceans no international law is more relevant than UNCLOS which came into force in 1994 and yet the US Senate has refused to ratify it. Can the US benefit from an international law it does not even recognise? If it can, then where is the equity?
3 “US ISR operations — which are conducted inside other countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs) — are lawful under customary international law and Article 58 of UNCLOS.”
This is another misconception because Article 58 (3) states clearly that “In exercising their rights and performing their duties under this Convention in the exclusive economic zone, States shall have due regard to the rights and duties of the coastal State and SHALL COMPLY with the laws and regulations adopted by the coastal State in accordance with the provisions of this Convention and other rules of international law in so far as they are not incompatible with this Part”. (Emphasis mine).
4 The writer’s claim that “The region and the world have come to the realisation that Beijing’s actions in the SCS are dangerously undermining the extant global order ..” is baseless rhetoric.
President Xi recently met with Secretary Mattis in Beijing and he reaffirmed that China is not an expansionist nor will it seek to colonise other states but its “position was firm and clear on issues relating to sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
Where does the legitimacy of the Chinese nine dash claim come from? The entire SCS? And China talked of peaceful rise, but has militarized the outposts way away from its coastline in the SCS. There is not a whisper about the nine dash line.
This is where the concerns lie – call it expansionist or any other word.
Why has Tibet demography been changed by populating the region by Han Chinese? There are too many contradictions in the claim of peaceful rise / non-expansionist claims by China and the acts China is engaging in. Even communist Russia respects other religions. But China has disrespect for other religions.
1 “Why has Tibet demography been changed by populating the region by Han Chinese?”
This is not true. According to figures from the sixth national census conducted in 2010, the number of Tibet’s permanent residents has reached 3,002,166, up 14.75 percent from the previous census in 2000.
The 2.716 million Tibetans made up about 90.47 percent of Tibet’s total population, whereas the Han, China’s most populous ethnic group, accounted for 8.17 percent. Other ethnic groups made up 1.35 percent of the permanent residents in Tibet.
China’s one child policy does not apply to Tibetans, and farming and herding Tibetan families often have two children or more.
http://english.cntv.cn/20110504/108163.shtml
In 2015 Ethnic Tibetans were the majority in Tibet (95.74%) out of a population of 3.176 million, up from 1.14 million in the 1950s.
History shows that Old Tibet was a feudal serfdom-society consisted of monks, the elites, aristocrats and serfs. Serfdom has been banned by China as the practice of slavery is a felony.
For information there were the data in the 1950s in Old Tibet under the monks, the elites, aristocrats:
a) There were then no modern hospitals. Today, there are many hospitals and more than 466 clinics in Tibet.
b) Life expectancy of ethnic Tibetans was only 35.5 years then. In 2015 this had increased to more than 68.2 years.
c) Old epidemics like cholera, dysentery, scarlet fever, TB and hepatitis B were endemic. Today, they are under control.
d) About 5% of women died of child births and pregnancy complications. Today, this is one of the lowest in the developing world.
e) Infant mortality at 43% was one of the highest in the world then. Today, it is as low as 0.31%.
f) Only monks, the elites and aristocrats were literate and the literacy rate then among the young and middle-aged Tibetan was only 5%. By 2015 the literacy rate among the same group soared to 95%.
g)There were no metal roads. Today, there are 5 highways with a total length of 75,470 km of highway. There are two airports and the world’s highest railway to connect Tibet to other parts of China.
h) Communication with the outside world was then non-existent. Today, modern hotels in Tibet cater for more than 15 million tourists a year. IDD calls and mobile phones provide travellers with easy communication in Lhasa and in the major towns. There are also many internet cafes in Lhasa.
By 2006 more than 1000 schools have been built to cater for over 500,000 students in Tibet. K-12 education in the Tibetan language is free. There is also the Tibet University in Lhasa fostering the Tibetan culture.
In 2015 about 15 million tourists visited Tibet up from 10.6 million in 2012, with direct flights from 33 cities, driving up revenues and retail sales for the Tibet Autonomous Region.
There are 40 ethnic groups in Tibet. All of them enjoy equal rights to participate in the governance of the region that had previously been ruled by only a few monks, the elites and aristocrats. There are no lower castes people as in India.
2 “Even communist Russia respects other religions. But China has disrespect for other religions.”
This is also not true. China has over 20 million Muslims, 245 million Buddhists which are 24 times more than in India plus Christians and Taoists and other denominations.
As the author of this article, I want to personally thank all who took the time out of their busy schedules to read and provide their commentaries. I may not agree with all the points made, but I sincerely acknowledge them. Nonetheless, I am honored and grateful for the dialogue. I just request alcon to consider the following additional points:
* “China has undisputed sovereignty over the SCS” (CCP’s official position)…”China will not give an inch of its territory in the SCS” (Xi Jinping).
* Despite all of China’s grandiloquence about Chinese maritime rights under UNCLOS and accepted international norms, Beijing is still conveniently disregarding several provisions therein to support its national interests and complement its strategic narratives. This is especially evident in how Beijing does not recognize (and actively undermine) the 2016 International Tribunal’s ruling on the SCS (ruled China’s NDL invalid).
* Chinese Double Standards in the Maritime Domain (The Diplomat, 16 Aug 2017) https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/chinese-double-standards-in-the-maritime-domain/): Beijing clearly understands its maritime rights, but does not necessarily tolerate and accept the same rights for others.
* China again dispatched a PLAN intelligence-gathering ships (AGI) off the coast of Hawaii (probably inside the US EEZ) to monitor and collect against RIMPAC 2018 (https://news.usni.org/2018/07/13/navy-chinese-spy-ship-monitoring-rimpac-exercise)
* Beijing’s interpretation of UNCLOS (military activities inside EEZ) is a minority position held by 27 states, while the vast majority of states (over 100, including all permanent United Nations Security Council members other than China) do not hold this position.
Thank you again for your kind and patience indulgence as I add to the strategic dialogue on this matter.
I thank the writer for adding a rejoinder for further discussions.
1 “China has undisputed sovereignty over the SCS” (CCP’s official position).”
The paradox is this: if the writer has not disputed when I wrote that “history shows that after WW2, Japan returned the Paracel and Spratly Islands to China in accordance with the Potsdam (1945) and Cairo (1943) Declarations signed by the Great Allies: US, UK, China and Russia, NOT to France or Vietnam”, why bring this subject up now?
2 “China will not give an inch of its territory in the SCS”.
Will Vietnam or the United States give an inch of its territory to another state? The answer is also “No”. So why excoriate any country for saying exactly the same thing?
3 “Beijing does not recognize (and actively undermine) the 2016 International Tribunal’s ruling on the SCS (ruled China’s NDL invalid).”
The writer is misguided. The ruling was NOT made by an “International Tribunal” which implies that the tribunal was affiliated with the UN or the ICJ.
The United Nations spokesman Mr Stephane Dujarric had already confirmed that the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague had nothing to do with the UN and the UN “doesn’t have position on the legal and procedural merits of the South China Sea arbitration case.”
In case the nuance escaped the writer, the PCA is not a court at all. It only provides a registry and secretarial services to any arbitral tribunal holding arbitration there.
The truth is that the ruling was made by ad hoc arbitral tribunal set up by the Philippines, with the Japanese head of ITLOS conveniently appointing 4 of the 5 “arbitrators”, all expenses paid for by the Philippines.
Even the three principle lawyers of the Philippines were from the United States but the irony is that the United States does not even recognize Unclos.
Japanese political analyst, Mr Jiro Honzawa, stated in his blog, “The Philippines was abetted by the US and Japan to apply for arbitration, because the latter two want to contain China. The arbitration was a trap set up by Japan and the US.”
China did not take part in the charade because she had already made a Declaration in 2006 under Article 298 (1)(a) that she would take part in any arbitration involving historical titles or maritime boundaries because Unclos has no power to decide on sovereignty matters.
Mr Motofumi Asai, a former Japanese Foreign Ministry official specializing in China relations, stated after the July 12, 2016 ruling, “From the result of the arbitration, people can see that it was conducted by a bunch of people who knew very little about the South China Sea issues.”
The NDL has no coordinates and is therefore not a maritime boundary. It was therefore laughable for the ad hoc tribunal to make a ruling on an imaginary line.
President Duterte, who was a former Prosecutor, is smart enough to know that the ruling was worthless and he has set it aside and will work with China to solve the disputes peacefully. So stop bringing this up.
4 “Chinese Double Standards in the Maritime Domain.”
This is a recycled meme of the writer’s flawed megaphone rhetoric that “Beijing’s “double standards,” in terms of selectively choosing parts of UNCLOS that it likes and ignoring (or reinterpreting) parts that it does not like”.
This is because the writer contradicted himself when he wrote “While not unprecedented and not in violation of international law, the (Chinese) deployments nonetheless remind the region, the United States, and the world that China is a rising power (and major maritime power) willing to fully leverage its maritime rights as “interpreted” under UNCLOS”.
The major difference between China and the United States, which escapes the writer, is that the United States has refused to ratify Unclos since 1994 and is therefore operating outside the rule of law.
Has China violated any nation’s 12nm territorial sea? The answer is “No”. The US has because it does not recognize the provisions in Unclos (an International law) and can sail to anywhere it likes.
5 “China again dispatched a PLAN intelligence-gathering ships (AGI) off the coast of Hawaii (probably inside the US EEZ) to monitor and collect against RIMPAC 2018”.
China was simply following what the US has been doing for a long time. Why is it good for the goose but not good for the gander? Why the double standards?
Can the United States claim a 200nm EEZ when it has not ratified Unclos? The answer is obvious.
6” Beijing’s interpretation of UNCLOS (military activities inside EEZ) is a minority position held by 27 states, while the vast majority of states (over 100, including all permanent United Nations Security Council members other than China) do not hold this position.”
This is not rocket-science. Anyone who can read will understand Article 58 (3) of Unclos, which clearly states that:
“In exercising their rights and performing their duties under this Convention in the exclusive economic zone, States shall have due regard to the rights and duties of the coastal State and shall comply with the LAWS AND REGULATIONS ADOPTED BY THE COASTAL STATES in accordance with the provisions of this Convention and other rules of international law in so far as they are not incompatible with this Part.” (Emphasis mine).
The United States disagrees with Article 58 (3) because it does not recognize Unclos, which is an international law of the sea.
Thank you for taking the time to add to the strategic dialogue on this matter. I acknowledge your additional points, but respectfully do not concur. Let’s just leave it as “we agree to disagree.”
I leave our readers with one last parting thought – Now is Not the Time to Back Down in the SCS (The Diplomat, 2 May 2018)
Thank you again for the dialogue, the real winners are the readers who now have multiple perspectives to come to their own conclusions. I do hope that you write a future article that captures your expressed viewpoints.
1 “Thank you for taking the time to add to the strategic dialogue on this matter. I acknowledge your additional points, but respectfully do not concur. Let’s just leave it as “we agree to disagree.”
Thank you too for acknowledging my additional points and I respect your right to disagree. But according to Buddha: “Three things cannot be long hidden: The Sun, the Moon and the Truth.”
2 “I leave our readers with one last parting thought – Now is Not the Time to Back Down in the SCS (The Diplomat, 2 May 2018) “
Instead of stridently urging the United States to go to war over rocks and islands in the South China Sea, which could bring total devastation to the littoral states around it, as no nation will be spared when the war turns nuclear from the start and a nuclear winter sets in, why not join me to urge every stakeholder in the SCS to negotiate for a lasting peace there.
China had already enunciated a policy of “Setting Aside” the disputes and share the resources in the SCS a long time ago. Unfortunately, no one was listening when ECAFE discovered oil there in the late 60s.
Today, Vietnam is already one of the three biggest oil producers in the South China Sea but China has yet to produce a single drop of oil there. Why is there a need to go to war with China when she is the aggrieved party?
3”the real winners are the readers who now have multiple perspectives to come to their own conclusions.”
The readers cannot fully benefit from this ‘strategic dialogue’ unless you explain clearly to them, with evidence of course, why you believe that the Paracel and Spratly Islands belong to Vietnam and not to China, despite the fact that after WW2, Japan had already returned the Paracel and Spratly Islands to China in accordance with the Potsdam (1945) and Cairo (1943) Declarations signed by the Great Allies: US, UK, China and Russia, and NOT to France or Vietnam.
The floor is all yours.
4 “I do hope that you write a future article that captures your expressed viewpoints.”
I already did and you can read an archival copy here:
https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/did-the-ruling-sink-the-rule-of-law
Thank you for joining in. China is using the proverb war is the art of deception. The link http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html gives the complete war manual by Sun Tzu.
With unconventional warfare being initiated by China, the same can be applied to China. Chose unconventional approaches – flagless warfare, news of Chinese insulting and desecrating Islam / Muslims (IS will train their guns on China), publicizing details of scandals of the Chinese leadership etc.
A dictatorship fears information and democracy more than its own destruction.
Do not match strength to strength in conventional military approaches. Use strengths that the enemy cannot counter. If even one fishing boat without bearing a flag unleashes a torpedo and brings down a Chinese oil rig, it will be enough to make China know that the bigger your are, the harder you fall.