EDITORIAL - Who can ever rein in China?

As expected, China has rejected United Nations arbitration of its dispute with the Philippines concerning competing claims over islets in the South China Sea. China says it will only agree to bilateral negotiations with the Philippines.

But of course that is the only position China will agree to on the issue. In bilateral negotiations, it can always bully the Philippines into submission, the Philippines being the weaker of the two parties, both militarily and economically.

China will never submit to international arbitration because it knows it will only lose what it has effectively stolen from the Philippines by force. And China knows no one can force it to submit to such arbitration.

Not even the United States, the so-called policeman of the world, can force China to do what it does not want to do. The United States is afraid of China, just as it is afraid of North Korea, Pakistan and Iran.

The United States no longer has the resolve to deal with increasingly intransigent countries, and it only has itself to blame. On so many occasions, the United States refused to put its foot down, preferring to talk tough without backing its bark with any bite.

And no one knows this more than China. Worse, China not only has the goods on the United States militarily, it also has its number economically. China is not an emerging superpower for nothing. It has backed its tough stance by even tougher actions.

This has been proven by its continued stealing of small islets in the South China Sea and its blatant claims reflected in its official documents such as passports, maps and globes. No country in the world today ever had it so good in expanding its territory than China.

And so, while the Philippines should be applauded for at least trying to resolve the dispute diplomatically, it is not as if it really had any other option to pursue. The only way for the Philippines is by diplomacy. Sadly, it is bound to fail even then humiliatingly.