The configuration of international power in the Asia-Pacific region is at a pivotal point, consequent to the Permanent Court of Arbitration's sweeping rebuke to China. Paradoxically, the judicial embarrassment gives China the upper hand in the geostrategic arena.
China could choose, of course, to respect the decision, perhaps using it as a point of departure for serious negotiations to resolve a range of South China Sea disputes. Taking that course would demonstrate an intention to accept and play a role in the existing international order of law and tradition. Instead, China has already stridently proclaimed its intention to do otherwise. By contemptuously dismissing the court's ruling, China disrupts the international legal order, which it clearly regards as a self-serving construct of Western powers and an instrument for containing China's ambitions. This is a hand, which, unless it quickly abandons it, China must play out.
Having demonstrated contempt for the traditional order, China cannot seek its advantages. Rather, Beijing must seek its collapse and replacement, at least in Asia, with an order of China's design. That is, if China truly despises the existing international legal and traditional order, it must move expeditiously to replace it with something else. China's surest means of doing that is to continue its aggressive buildup in the South China Sea and, in effect, dare anyone to challenge it. That is, of course, what China has been doing for the past few years. Now, however, there is no longer any credible case to be made that China's expansion in the South China Sea is done under the cover of sovereignty or any recognized legal right.