Talk:South China Sea Arbitration

Play Pretend?

WP:SOAPBOX

Are you fake news promoters gonna pretend this article didn't exist and the countries list on this fakewiki is real??? Spin news and fake news do not change the fact that many of the Global South and developing countries (former Western colonies) support China. E.g., African Union, Arab League. https://thediplomat.com/2016/07/who-supports-china-in-the-south-china-sea-and-why/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.54.91.228 (talk) 22:54, 20 October 2020 (UTC) Before acting uncivil and claiming "fake news" as a fancy way of Wikipedia:I just don't like it, that article is flawed on many accounts and was discussed previously here at Talk:Philippines v. China/Archive 2. To summarize, their methodology is flawed because they never listed which countries fall under which category to come up with their conclusion. TAnother red flag is that many of the sources they cite use Chinese news sources (usually that foreign embassy, which have been problematic as they listed some countries that don't officially or deny support for China on their official Ministry of Foreign Affairs website (e.g. Fiji, Montenegro) and Chinese news sources are biased towards to the government due to censorship there. They also play the anti-western card or the logically flawed argument "They are expressed and available in Chinese, French, Spanish, Arabic, Swahili, Khmer, or other languages. Therefore, some analysts in the English-speaking world may have merely failed to find them." rather then refuting the sources directly so it's an opinion article masquerading as fact and the authors have close ties to Chinese government (possible conflict of interest). See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources Ssbbplayer (talk) 05:23, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

ITN Nomination

This article was nominated to be featured on the Main Page as part of the "In the news" section on July 12, 2016. The nomination was closed due to significant ongoing content disputes and allegations of non-NPOV editing.

Request for comment

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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We are more than half-way through the current 30-day full protection of this article, and I worry there's a slight risk edit warring could resume at the end of that period. In the interest of keeping this RfC as narrow as possible, let's ask this question: which side of this diff—[1]—is preferable? For clarity, we can call the options "list more countries as supporting China's position" and "list fewer countries as supporting China's position". The question is not the best possible approach to the issue, but which is a better starting point once page protection ends. Chris Hallquist (talk) 14:53, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

(pinged by bot) Has there been prior discussion of the issue? If so, can you give pointers to where? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:11, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 if you read one section of this talk page, it should probably be "Use of Chinese government sources in the International Reactions section" (discussion started at about the time of the edit war that led to the page being protected). But currently a huge fraction of the talk page is about this one issue, which is why I tried to word it as narrowly as possible. Other relevant sections of the talk page:

• "General problems with sources on this page"
• "Use of Xinhuanet as a source"
• "Chinese POV Given Prevalence"
• "71 countries supporting China's position on various occasions published with official links on http://thediplomat.com"

There are also country-specific sections for Poland, Cambodia, Fiji, India, and maybe some others I'm forgetting. As well as some sections that veered off into personal attacks (try e.g. CTRL+F for "hidden agenda"). Chris Hallquist (talk) 19:37, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Comments

• List fewer countries. Many of the sources used in the disputed material are Chinese government sources (or CCP sources), used as evidence of the position of countries other than China. This is a clear case of sources having an "apparent conflict of interest" per WP:QS. Furthermore, statements by e.g. China's foreign minster, quoted in an independent media organization (e.g. the Guardian, should be treated as coming from the Chinese government, not treated as coming from the Guardian. Finally, in some cases the countries listed as supporting China have made official statements on the South China Sea dispute, but the statements are more ambiguous than the Chinese government has made them out to be. Chris Hallquist (talk) 15:02, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I think the best way forward is to restructure the international responses section. Instead of deciding which country is pro–China or Philippines, I think it should be a section in which the reactions and official statements for each country such be listed in the way that User:Hariboneagle927 mentioned previously (shown below for emphasis). It is much in line with the structure such as seen on the controversial events such as the Euromaidan, and Crimea annexation (exclude the map that indicates the positions of the country since it is WP:OR). I think we should also refrain from deciding whether the country is pro–China or not since we need a reliable, third party, non–partisan, and secondary source that verifies that the country itself is leaning towards one position. This is pretty difficult to find. Currently many of the sources in the international reactions are primary sources as they come from statements made by the foreign minister so they are difficult to determine their positions exactly. It would be WP:OR if we assume that they are leaning towards to pro–China or Philippines unless it explicitly says so, particularly if the sources are biased towards China or Philippines. I feel that the current structure of the international reactions is prone to bias from both sides. I think restructuring it would resolve the issue that has been lingering for a while. Ssbbplayer (talk) 03:49, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

For example:

Claim of support from Chinese and Philippine sources

Support for the Philippines as claimed by Philippine/non–Chinese sources

• Country A
• Country B

and so on

Support for China as claimed by Chinese sources (or content originally from a Chinese source that is published in another source).

• Country A
• Country B

and so on

• I agree with this as far as it goes, but I was trying to craft a maximally narrow RfC, in hopes of making the result of this RfC as clear as possible, to ensure we don't see the immediate return of an edit war when the page is un-protected. Chris Hallquist (talk) 03:51, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

• To clarify, as I've said before, I think limiting ourselves to official statements makes sense, but I'm leery of extensively detailing the meta-controversy over who supports who. I'd make an exception for cases where there's something interesting to saying (e.g. countries like India who've publicly disputed claims by the Chinese government that they support China). But listing every such claim made by the Chinese would violate WP:NOTNEWS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chris Hallquist (talk • contribs) 22:12, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I suggest to limit it to official statements of governments. Otherwise sources will conflict one another. No need to indicate whether one country is in favor or not. -- Namayan (talk) 04:11, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, this makes sense. I may have gone overboard in trying to make this RfC very narrow. Chris Hallquist (talk) 22:12, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I'll agree with "list fewer". Mainly though, I think the categories should be reduced. The vast majority of those countries have merely expressed support for bilateral negotiations. But both the US and the Philipines have supported that as well . So if that's the criteria, they should be included too. But only statements that actually express an opinion specifically on the arbitration (like Sudan and Taiwan) seem notable to me here. Also, not directly related, but the entire Academic analysis section is hugely biased as well, and should probably just be deleted Acerimusdux (talk) 09:17, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

• List all countries. However, separate the countries whose reaction has been independently verified from those that have only been claimed by the involved countries. (For military battles, it is very common to list the claims of the warring countries separately from the neutral assessments. The issue here is similar.) I am not recommending any change of format. You would just need two more headings Philippine claims and Chinese claims. As per WP:PUS, it is fine to treat everything in Xinhua News as Chinese claim. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

• @Kautilya3, can you link to an example of how this works for military battles? I'm leery of the approach you suggest, but I'm not sure I was aware of this precedent, so I might change my mind. Chris Hallquist (talk) 16:11, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• You can look at the infobox of Sino-Vietnamese War for example. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:20, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm fine with doing something like the Sino-Vietnamese War example, where conflicting claims get a sentence or two apiece. In this case, saying something like "China has claimed more than 70 countries support its position" makes sense. But I'm more leery of making a comprehensive list of those countries. Chris Hallquist (talk) 18:28, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• It would take half a page to list every country China has claimed support them. Such a large amount of clearly inaccurate claims would be WP:UNDUE, and may cause readers to confuse them as real support. A simple statement that "China has falsely claimed support from more countries" would suffice. This source could be cited for such a statement. Mamyles (talk) 17:09, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm leery of leaning heavily on Breitbart. The Breitbart article seems to rely heavily on AMTI, can we just use AMTI? Chris Hallquist (talk) 18:30, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• List countries and reactions in alphabetical order (no need to separate into pro-China/pro-Philippines) The problem here is that many of the responses by countries cannot be properly classified into a pro-China or pro-Philippines position. For example, Singapore's position. Unless the countries have explicitly stated that they are supporting one party, we are not supposed to classify it either. My suggestion is to split this out to a new article and record the official positions of various countries as described in reliable sources. (I also suggest not to use any China/Philippine based sources for sourcing the reactions. Best to take a reliable media in that country as well as another media in an uninvolved country. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:33, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

• I do not support the idea of listing all the countries with the sides they have taken, simply because this is too mammoth a task, and of no practical value. Loyalties are bound to keep shifting as each country courts the favour of either China or Philippines - or the countries allied to them. Some countries tend to exercise a neutral stance so that is does not interfere with their trade - this is common in international politics. Just a few lines related to a few nations should suffice. Notthebestusername (talk) 10:09, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

As for Lemongirl942's idea of "...media in an uninvolved country", this is difficult to get - USA, UK, Singapore are all countries that are involved with their own agendas. I am however in favour of Lemongirl942's idea of non Chinese and non Filipino sources of information. The only exception should be claims of each nation, where local media may be acceptable. Notthebestusername (talk) 10:09, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

We usually do keep information about reactions to international disputes. This is clearly an important case, so I don't see any harm in mentioning the reactions of all countries as long as reliable sources are available to source them. I'm just not in favour of classifying them as "pro-China" or "pro-Philippines". As for the sources, it should be ensured that the reactions are relevant to "this ICJ case only" and that high quality secondary sources are available to verify the country's position. (An actual statement by the country's Ministry for Foreign Affairs would be best here). --Lemongirl942 (talk) 10:19, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

References

Proposed language for the article

What do people think of this language for use in the article? Could be included with or without comprehensive lists from China and the AMTI:

China has claimed that over 70 countries support its position on the arbitration case. India, Fiji, Poland, Slovenia, and Vietnam have disputed China's characterization of their position as supporting China in the dispute. As of August 2016, The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative's Arbitration Support Tracker counted only five countries as publicly rejecting the ruling. Chinese academics Wang Wen and Chen Xiaochen defended China's claims in an article published on The Diplomat's website. Wang and Chen argued that that support for any part of China's position (including support for settling the dispute by peaceful negotiation) "is to support China’s position."

-- Chris Hallquist (talk) 00:00, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

@Chris Hallquist: I think the language being used is not biased at all. I'm unclear if it can be included with or without comprehensive lists from China and the AMTI though. Ssbbplayer (talk) 13:47, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Academic analysis section

Okay, I'm finally going to start reworking the academic analysis section. In past discussions on this talk page, some people have urged caution about deleting material, but I haven't seen any real proposals for how to deal with the issues that have been raised about WP:QUOTEFARM and WP:UNDUE. I'm going to see if I can come up with something, but I'm starting by just cutting citations that seem clearly not to add anything to the article. In many cases the citations were to Chinese media sources, which raise issues with the source having a conflict of interest, as well as giving only a brief quotation from the academic in question, which raises questions of whether the academic in question is being accurately represented. In some cases of sources I've removed, there have been other issues—such as flat-out inaccuracy in the case of Ted L. McDorman's article (see section I started for that case above). Chris Hallquist (talk) 02:57, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, it's an improvement anyway. It's all still somewhat biased and misleading. I had been in favor of deleting it all. But maybe adding some analytical quotes from people like Julian Ku , Jerome Cohen (CFR) , Daniel Magraw (FPI, Johns Hopkins SAIS) and Jacques deLisle (FPRI) would help balance things a little. I've already added a reference to this quote from Ku:

"Scholars in the United States and Europe who have studied this case evince a diversity of opinion, although none that I could find have argued that China can legally ignore a jurisdictional award. This only makes the unanimity of Chinese legal opinion on this question more startling." Acerimusdux (talk) 12:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, my initial edit was a bandaid. I'm hoping I'll find time for a more thorough reworking. The goal should be to turn the section into something that's more than a list of quotes, and adds to readers' understanding of the case beyond stating the bare facts. Chris Hallquist (talk) 14:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

While this case definitely deserves in depth academic analysis (and I am sure this will be done in law of the sea courses across the world), I am not completely sure this Wikipedia page is the palce for it. There are precedents for the behaviour of the aggrieved party (in this case I am referring to China) - for example: in Nicaragua v. United States (1986) the ICJ ruled against USA, and asked it to pay reparations for its role in the upheavals on the country, but the US reaction was much like China's in the current case - The US had refused to participate in the case since the beginning, hence stated that it would not abide by the decision. And it hasn't. I do not see any academic analysis in the Nicaragua v. United States wiki page. Just making a point - the academic analysis is much deserved, only I am not sure if Wikipedia is the place for it (Imho, each page of the 501 page ruling is worth an in depth academic analysis. I myself had written a paper on Mischief reef in 2015 - much before the ruling). Notthebestusername (talk) 07:41, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm not saying Wikipedia should be doing academic analysis, but we can report what various academics have said. However, it's looking increasingly unlikely I'll find time to do what I was envisioning, so I withdraw my objection to just deleting the section. Chris Hallquist (talk) 22:02, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I finally bit the bullet and removed the Academic Analysis section. I have no objection to including a substantially re-written version of that section. But unfortunately I have more pressing demands on my time. Chris Hallquist (talk) 12:30, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I think deleting the entire section is the only good option. The issues haven't been resolved in a while and the section is highly prone to cherrypicking. I noticed that many of the info was cherrypicked since it tended to favor the Chinese POV using unreliable Chinese sources or certain scholars (why were they chosen compared to others) (many criticize the tribunal or its aspects). Ssbbplayer (talk) 17:22, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

References

Does PCA have an association with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea?

It seems like Permanent Court of Arbitration has always been referred as an international tribunal, but it's missing the part that clarifies its connection with ITLOS. Does the ruling reflect ITLOS stance on the issue? Does PCA speak for ITLOS at all? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.33.83.206 (talk) 10:23, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

PCA only provided venue and recording services and is not the authority. See https://pca-cpa.org/en/services/arbitration-services/unclos/ for the relationship between UNCLOS and PCA. Of the 5 judges, 4 were retired ITLOS judges. As for why the case did not go to ITLOS or ICJ, it is because China did not accept. --JWB (talk) 17:08, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Article text repeatedly refers to PCA as if it is the court or authority. All these instances should be changed. --JWB (talk) 16:23, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 1 December 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) BegbertBiggs (talk) 16:06, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

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Philippines v. China → South China Sea Arbitration – As per WP:COMMONNAME, the PCA case has been commonly referred to virtually by most news outlets as the South China Sea arbitration case/ruling or variations of thereof and not Philippines vs. China which does not really tell much about the scope of the case. Hariboneagle927 (talk) 11:34, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment I feel this should contain Philippines and China in the title somewhere, so combine both titles together: Philippines v. China South China Sea Arbitration; it would also not confuse the currently confusable title, with sports events. -- 65.92.247.90 (talk) 13:10, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support. I find the "v." most troublesome. I think for many readers, this will not be a common construct in the context of international disputes. South China Sea Arbitration helps make both the type of proceeding and the subject matter of the dispute more clear. JArthur1984 (talk) 16:06, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Descriptive title as with the titling of the Island of Palmas Case article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:26, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
• Comment There has been no other arbitration case involving the South China Sea dispute, so I think retaining China and Philippines somewhere in the title is unecessary.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 12:15, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support Although it is most often correct to use the name of a legal case this is not ideal in this situation here because the topic of this dispute of this is larger and goes on for decades. Jorahm (talk) 19:05, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.