China warned rivals on Wednesday against turning the South China Sea into a “cradle of war” and threatened an air defence zone there, after its claims to the strategically vital waters were declared invalid. While Beijing maintains it will ignore the ruling, Liu said there are hopes of relaunching bilateral talks with Manila over the South Sea China.
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First, we should not forget that for China and other claimants the issue of sovereignty is at the heart of the South China Sea disputes.
The Philippines has repeatedly taken moves that have complicated the maritime disputes in an attempt to “entrench its illegal occupation of some islands and reefs” of the South China Sea, said a whitepaper issued by China.
In this Tuesday, July 12, 2016 photo, a worker browses a paper near a map of South China Sea with nine-dash line claims under Chinese territory on display at a maritime defense educational facility in Nanjing in east China’s Jiangsu province.
On Wednesday, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said that Beijing would be within its rights to set up an air defence zone in the sea.
If such an ADIZ were to be imposed, China would require all aircraft entering the designated airspace to identify themselves.
China said it neither accepted nor recognised the award of an arbitral tribunal established at the request of the Philippines. “The Chinese leadership will decide which military options should be taken based on how provocatively the [United States] challenges China’s national sovereignty in the aftermath of the rulings over the South China Sea”.
“Whether we need to set up one in the South China Sea depends on the level of threat we receive”, he said.
“It is official, the West Philippine Sea is ours and ours alone”.
The Spratlys are also claimed in part or whole by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
It added that “disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved in accordance with relevant agreements, non-militarization commitments, as well as internationally established norms of conduct”.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled Tuesday that China has no historic rights to its claimed “nine-dash line” and that it had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights in the exclusive economic zone. He also suggested there would be “tangible benefits” to the Philippines if the two countries sat down at the negotiating table, The Associated Press reports.
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“While China upholds its historical rights, we respect the [UN Convention on the Law of the Sea] and should defend our de facto occupation of the island [Itu Aba]”, Lo said, asking the ministry to pay extra attention when responding to China’s calls. To assert its power, in recent years China has built artificial islands capable of hosting military installations in the sea.
