One more international norm gets busted in the skies over Belarus
China, too, has been getting away with flouting international law. Its leader, Xi Jinping, is acting as if an international court never ruled that it has no right to exercise sovereignty over much of the South China Sea — a body of water that carries one-third of global shipping. First, China built and fortified artificial islands in the sea. Now it is swarming the waters with nominally independent fishing vessels. In March, 220 Chinese ships anchored around Whitsun Reef in the Spratly Islands, driving away Philippine vessels even though the area is part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. China has also been stepping up military flights near Taiwanese airspace, raising pressure on an embattled democracy. And then, of course, there are China’s heinous human rights violations against the Uyghurs, which have been described as “genocide” by the State Department, and its crackdown on Hong Kong in violation of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration.
