Graham Young

The insertion of the annoying tweakbit.com advertisement above the article title, and the deliberate use of “Haig” in lieu of “Hague” in the article title, give the impression that Online Opinion is going to the dogs.

You do not have to commiserate with our failing PM by dropping your standards.

This will be most interesting no doubt, considering China is permanent member of UN security council too. However, I believe they and the US see this as some kind of conversion process from the cold war which never really went away, it just morphed into something else like we have now with China V US.
Look at the space race, nearest rival to US "adventurousness" into space is China. Forget Russia, they have too many other problems to deal with.

All this rivalry between superpowers reminds me of the plot behind the story of the video game series "Fallout".

"On October 23, 2077, the United States, China, and other nuclear-armed countries commenced a brief but rapid exchange of nuclear strikes. Although the conflict lasted only two hours, the destruction it brought was staggering and complete: more energy was released in the early moments of the war than in all previous global conflicts combined."

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_world

Even though we are only in 2016, the current geopolitical tensions this had bought about are beginning to eerily take on this story line..

Strategic shock-jocking aside...

It think it more likely that the Hague's ruling on China in the South China Sea (SCS) will be lengthy and with many intentional ambiguities. This adhere's to the Hague's job of impartially judging, in so doing helping resolve disputes, not making them worse.

The Hague might more likely say "All those countries* involved in disputes over South China Sea landforms are asked to..."

* Countries with conflicting claims over SCS islands/reefs/shoals include, not only China, but the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia.

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_South_China_Sea

Pete

State-protected industrial barons during German national socialism resemble the communist-capitalist party oligarchs of Russia and China. Red colour on banners was used by them all. Russians and Chinese are convinced they are each a privileged nationality under historic abuse by unpolished invaders resembling German purity being abused by Jews.
The denial of China's right to the sea named for it equals the denial of Russia's front door , Ukraine. And both are being rudely pushed at Russia and China by the same people in the same week. And maybe China is more reliable for Putin than Italy was for the Fuhrer.

Ja nicknamenick (unt WTF!?)

Time for zie Fuhrer to raise der blitzkrieg battleship Bismarck from zie Atlantik Ocean to invade South China Sea by vay of Poland.

Peiter Panzer

Bismarck may well add firepower to the People's navy and become a Chinese island when the Fairey Swordfish send torpedoes. With US electronics being fried like Peking Duck the iron bombs will win.
Indeed, its takeoff and landing speeds were so low that, unlike most carrier-based aircraft, it did not require the carrier to be steaming into the wind. On occasion, when the wind was right, Swordfish were flown from a carrier at anchor.