Xis comments indicates Chinas tough stand on the ruling by the five judge tribunal appointed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration which struck down Beijings controversial nine- dash line on the SCS claiming over 90 per cent of the area.
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Now a UN-designated court in The Hague has delivered a ruling that declares invalid China’s claim to historic rights over nearly all of the South China Sea, as well as islands within it.
“China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights in the exclusive economic zone by interfering with Philippine fishing and petroleum exploration, by constructing artificial islands and failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from fishing in the zone”, the PCA said.
Reichler said: “If these other states stand up for their rights in the way that the Philippines has done, you’ll get the situation where all of the neighboring states are insisting that China withdraw its illegal claims and respect their legal rights which have been defined and recognized and acknowledged today, because those states have the same rights as the Philippines”.
The Philippines welcomed the ruling and called “on those concerned to exercise restraint and sobriety”.
Analysts said the ruling dealt a blow to China’s South China Sea strategy by potentially providing ammunition to the arguments of other countries involved in maritime disputes with China.
The ruling also said China had caused permanent harm to the coral reef ecosystem in the Spratlys, charges China has always rejected.
The statement said China has been firm in upholding its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the SCS and cited various documents released to assert its claims over EEZ and the continental shelf.
– China interfered with the traditional rights of Philippine fishermen by restricting their access to Scarborough Shoal.
“The best guesses suggest that more than half the world’s maritime trade goes through the Straits of Malacca, along with half the world’s liquefied natural gas and one third of its crude oil”, southeast Asia expert Bill Hayton wrote in this book “The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia”.
Second, the Philippines’ unilateral initiation of arbitration infringes upon China’s right as a state party to UNCLOS to choose on its own will the procedures and means for dispute settlement. China has long maintained that the tribunal did not have jurisdiction over the dispute.
“This award represents a devastating legal blow to China’s jurisdictional claims in the South China Sea”, Ian Storey, of Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, told Reuters.
The tribunal was ruling on seven of 15 points brought by the Philippines.
An angry China has rejected as “null and void” the verdict of a UN-backed global tribunal which struck down its claims over the South China Sea.
2012: China takes effective control of Scarborough Shoal after a tense standoff between Chinese coast guard ships and a Philippine naval vessel that had stopped a Chinese fishing boat to inspect it.
The tribunal was set up by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, an intergovernmental organisation established in 1899. Neighbors Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.
“We have noted that the new Philippines government has expressed its willingness to hold dialogue with China in a bid to promote common development and properly manage dispute between the two sides”.
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Nguyen Thanh Hung, a local fisheries executive in central province of Quang Ngai said two Chinese vessels chased and sank the Vietnamese fishing boat as it was fishing near the Paracel Islands on Saturday.
