China could be considering withdrawing from UNCLOS based on the precedent already set by the U.S.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has just approved a resolution condemning China’s behavior in Asian seas — behavior that China sees as defending its claims.

Meanwhile, rival claimants as well as the United States and other Western powers have criticized some of China’s actions in its 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone as violating the freedom of navigation. They and Japan say China’s drawing of enclosing baselines around the disputed Senkaku Islands (called the Diaoyu Islands in China) in the East China Sea is illegal.

China used to argue the “unequal treaty” doctrine regarding boundaries that were concluded with colonial or imperial powers. It is thus not surprising that its leaders occasionally revert to rhetoric reminiscent of that era proclaiming that this or that area is divine and sacred and has belonged to China since “time immemorial.”

Indeed some of China’s political analysts and particularly military officers seem to be questioning why China ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty in the first place. Part of the explanation is that China assumed — obviously incorrectly — that the Law of the Sea dispute settlement mechanism could be avoided by direct negotiations to settle maritime jurisdictional disputes.

China’s most significant and increasingly vocal critic is the U.S. This is of course ironic since the U.S. has not joined some 164 other countries including its allies in ratifying the treaty. Yet it persists in interpreting its provisions in its favor. Unwittingly the U.S. may be both showing China a way out of its dilemma and stimulating it to take it.