By David Wroe
Beijing's dismissive response to the ruling against it by The Hague sums up precisely why we should be worried about rules and law and order as China pushes outward.
Beijing argues that its fight with the Philippines is all about who owns disputed rocks and reefs - and thereby commands rights over the waters around them - in the South China Sea.
As Julie Bishop made a point of stressing, the Hague ruling was not about such sovereignty disputes.
Rather it was about what a country is allowed to do at sea. It is not allowed to build a new island in another country's exclusive economic zone, as China has done to the Philippines. It is not allowed to claim rights over waters extending well out from artificial islands built on rocks and reefs that otherwise could not sustain a human community, as China has done. It is not allowed to destroy evidence of what kind of rocks and reefs were there in the first place by building military airstrips over them, as China has done.
Beijing Evening newspaper headlines on Tuesday, the day of The Hague ruling. Credit: Getty Images
Beijing wants it to remain a simple sovereignty dispute because it has been steadily changing the facts on the ground so that the dispute becomes ever harder to resolve in favour of the Philippines - or any other country China is in dispute with.
It's rejected "third party" views - such as courts ruling on international law - because it prefers to negotiate directly with its rivals, denying these smaller contestants a level playing field.
This would be the new world without a rules-based order. As a middle power, Australia relies heavily on the rules-based order and has a particular interesting in making sure it's maintained.
The Hague has passed judgement on China's alternative, delivering Beijing the poke in the eye everyone expected - plus a kick in the shins for good measure.
As well as finding against China on every area of law, it also amplified concerns over the environmental devastation that Chinese island-building is wreaking on precious coral ecosystems - something that, as the Lowy Institute's Euan Graham points out, should finally motivate western environmental groups and global civil society generally.
By dismissing China's historic claim to most of the South China Sea, the Hague has given a major shot in the arm to Vietnam, whose extended waters as defined by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea - the convention The Hague was interpreting - are encroached upon by China's unilateral "nine dash line".
China had already shot itself in the foot recently by inexplicably antagonising Indonesia, the big kid within the Association of South East Asian Nations, over its Natuna islands.
For China to lash out in response to The Hague finding now would "be a blatant slap in the face of international law and the mood of most of the international community", says the Australian National University's Rory Medcalf.
The ruling won't make China dismantle its islands and sail home but it is another significant step towards cementing international opinion.
Unity is vital - not just in ASEAN but through continued firmness from Australia, the US and even Europe, which has too long been muted on this issue.