Well, this, I would suggest, is quite clearly at the cabinet level in terms of a decision. If we look at the United States Navy and we look at the Royal Australian Navy, they have both in fact tested Chinese pretensions. I use the word “pretensions” with intent, because the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling of July 16 indicated that Chinese claims were in fact almost entirely bogus in the South China Sea. Their sailing of naval vessels through what the Chinese would otherwise consider to be their waters has put that PCA ruling to the test.
We will have ships in fact transiting the South China Sea. I don't know whether the government has any intention to test Chinese claims in terms of maritime territory around these artificial creations in the South China Sea.
We were, long ago, one of the principal architects of UNCLOS. At the heart of the matter is not so much what we do but the degree to which the signatories to UNCLOS, of which China is one, observe their responsibilities under UNCLOS. UNCLOS requires China to accept in totality the PCA ruling out of Den Haag.
The Chinese have mounted a campaign designed to discredit that ruling. They've simply manifestly ignored what the court laid down. As a nation, we did come up with a statement, not terribly muscular but a statement, suggesting that we supported the PCA ruling. What was disheartening to me was the fact that only about seven nations globally actually came forward with something reasonably muscular in support of this international norm. There were a whole host of lukewarm comments and then fence-sitters—hardly reassuring in terms of sustaining an international system of legal norms.