PRC behavior was also destabilizing; as I've stated often, assertive PRC maritime law enforcement in disputed waters is obnoxious & unhelpful. But many of its most assertive behaviors have been responses to destabilizing actions of other states. This is important context. 1/4 https://twitter.com/SheenaGreitens/status/1349801373001461761

This context shows the escalation dynamics involved in the South China Sea disputes, which underscores the need for the US not to feed into that dynamic thru rhetoric, sanctions, & other interference, but to instead deescalate thru diplomacy that promotes mutual compromise. 2/4

Philippines' decision (w/ US support) to press forward w/ arbitration without PRC agreeing to participate deepened cynicism in China toward intl law & ultimately produced a ruling that's made it much harder for PRC & PHL to develop stabilizing joint development arrangements. 3/4

And the ruling did so on very dubious legal merits, in my view and in the view of many (non-Chinese) experts, incl. Myron Nordquist, the secretary of the US delegation to UNCLOS and one of the premier law of the sea experts in the US & the world: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781788116268/9781788116268.00017.xml 4/4

(Not to mention the fact that the tribunal's ruling on this issue runs directly counter to claims of the US & many other former colonial powers who claim EEZs from remote, uninhabited islands & reefs--France, UK, Norway, Australia, Japan, plus Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela)

Of course, Japan's claim around Okinotorishima is a favorite punching bag here. But my personal favorite example is the US claim to a 200-nm EEZ around Kingman Reef: