Speaking at CSIS after the conclusion of CSIS's day-long drumbeat for war, Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, gave a rather thorough response to Tuesday's decision by the Arbitration Court.

“China rejects the court's decision,” Cui said, because “the case violates the general practice on having the states themselves consent to proceed to arbitration.” Secondly, he noted, the court “exceeded its authorization since territorial issues are not subject to UNCLOS.” The decision to take the case was a matter of “professional incompetence' and “questionable interpretation”. In addition, he added “it was not done in good faith.”  “UNCLOS,” he said, “calls for mutual cooperation and understanding. But this was an attempt to use the legal system for an extraneous purpose. It will also undermine the willingness of nations to engage in negotiations in order to resolve territorial disputes.”  “Abusing the arbitration procedures in this way will weaken the motivation of states to negotiate. It will intensify conflicts and even cause confrontation. In effect, it will undermine international law,” he said.

He then went on, regarding the deployment of U.S. warships to the region. “Sending these carriers and bombers is a manifestation of the law 'might makes right',” Cui said. “Therefore China has to oppose and reject it. This is in the true spirit of international law. And if it happens to us, it could happen to anyone.” “China,” he said, “would not use international bodies in that way, but they would defend their sovereignty. Because if any country fails to defend its sovereignty, it has no dignity to speak of.”

And the problem did not begin with China, he said. China and other countries had been well on the way to overcome their differences. “The tensions started to rise five or six years ago when we started to hear about the 'pivot',” Cui said. “And has anybody benefited from this? I don't think so. If economic growth is weakened, everybody will be hurt,” he warned. “And to those who hereby think they have a 'free ride' because of this, I urge them go to Iraq and to Syria and see how things worked out there. Be careful what you wish for,” he said.

Cui also noted that China was not the first, but rather the last country to build structures on the islands and reefs, which were in their territorial claims, and the facilities they built, like lighthouses, benefited all. On freedom of navigation he distinguished between freedom of navigation for commercial vessels, which have never been threatened by China, and military vessels.  “China supports the freedom of navigation for commercial vessels since commerce is extremely important for China. The deployment of naval warships, on the other hand, could actually threaten the freedom of navigation for commercial vessels.” “Negotiations and consultation offer the most successful way to resolve the issues,” Cui said. “Peace cannot be brought by a fleet of aircraft carriers,” he said.

On the very day of the imperial ruling by the Hague Court of Arbitration against China on the Philippines' claim over the South China Sea, CSIS, the neocon center in Washington, DC, held a full-day forum on the South China Sea, beginning with a keynote by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK). Sullivan, Sen. John McCain's cohort on the Senate Armed Services Committee, gave a speech which would have fit well at a Nazi Nuremberg rally, only to be then exposed by EIR's Bill Jones as a spokesman and hitman for the British Empire in its modern guise of the bipartisan war hawks backing Obama's war mobilization against Russia and China.

Sullivan, like many others at the CSIS conclave, repeated Defense Secretary Ash Carter's line that the US military can and will "fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows." He had the gall to say that the US wants to use its military power so that "wars of aggression will be relegated to the past." He said that the Founding Fathers wrote "freedom of navigation" into our Declaration of Independence against a tyrant that restrained that freedom, and that we are continuing that defense of freedom of navigation today with our military in the South China Sea.

EIR's Washington bureau chief, Bill Jones, said that for him history was important, as one of his forefathers had been killed in that same American Revolution, and that he had a correction to make on Sullivan's history lesson. "Our founding fathers had revolted against a British Empire,” Jones said, “the Lord of the Seas at the time, which also claimed that they represented the “rule of law”, THEIR law, and we had insisted that we had the right to determine our own destiny.” “Now we seem to have adopted the roll of the British Empire and are insisting China do the same thing. Think of how China is viewing this from the standpoint of their own history. If we follow up on your proposal to build up our military forces in the region on behalf of “freedom of navigation,” or any other pretext, this will lead to war,” Jones said.

Sullivan was thoroughly destabilized, as the audience was silent and clearly nervous.

"We don't set the rules," he finally babbled. "We may be the leaders, but this is the rules-based order. To say we are some sort of dictator is wrong. We disagree on that. We want freedom of navigation and commerce. More and more countries are calling on us to help because we are trusted. Look at the NATO meeting last week [!]. They trust us, that we have no territorial demands, they need our help to fight back against nations that use coercion, like Russia and now China."

The very next question was posed by Defense News, whose reporter said: "In following up that last question, you said that now we should send two aircraft carrier groups to be permanently deployed in the region. Isn't that going to be an escalation which leads to further tension?" Again Sullivan stood exposed, responding defensively: "I don't view our country standing with our allies militarily, for trade and commerce, as some kind of a threat."

The Nuremberg rally proceeded, nonetheless, in lock-step.

[All quotations above are close paraphrases of the respective comments.]