The South China Sea Islands have been China’s territory since ancient times, and China refuses to accept any claims or activities based on the arbitral ruling, Xi said while meeting in Beijing with European Council president Donald Tusk and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.
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Even just raising the issue at the two-day summit starting on Friday will anger China, which has long bridled at Philippine efforts to have the dispute discussed at multilateral events.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said China had “the right” to declare an air defence identification zone over the sea if it felt threatened, which would give the military authority over foreign aircraft and would likely further raise tensions in the region.
Al Jazeera looks at the implications of the ruling for China’s row with Japan in the East China Sea.
“There was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the “nine-dash line”, the Permanent Court of Arbitration said, referring to a demarcation line on a 1947 map of the sea.
NPR’s Anthony Kuhn explained on Facebook Live on Tuesday that China has “really talked up its position” on the South China Sea, so that the government is now concerned about how people will respond to the tribunal’s decision.
China’s Foreign Ministry blasted a statement issued by the US State Department endorsing Tuesday’s ruling on China’s territorial rights in the South China Sea by The Hague’s arbitration court.
Although the decision is seen as a major legal declaration regarding one of the world’s most contested regions, its impact is uncertain given the tribunal has no power of enforcement. “We hope other countries will not take the chance to blackmail China”, he added.
Six regional governments have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, waters that are rich for fishing and as potential energy resources, and where an estimated $5 trillion in global trade passes each year. The Chinese ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, was blunt.
China has rejected the ruling, saying it will not comply.
“The South China Sea ruling, especially the categorisation of Taiping island, has severely jeopardised our country’s rights in the South China Sea islands and their relevant waters”, Tsai told soldiers on the deck of ship in footage broadcast by news channels.
The ruling backed Manila’s argument that the features claimed by Beijing in the South China Sea were not islands and therefore not entitled to 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zones that underpin China’s “nine-dash line” territorial claim over the sea’s waters.
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The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian nations – which includes the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Brunei – have for more than a decade sought to broker an agreement with China to resolve the competing claims.
