The United States, Japan, and Australia stepped away from a meeting of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, on Monday to issue a joint statement urging China to avoid building more military outposts in the South China Sea.
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“India has noted the Award of the Arbitral Tribunal constituted under Annex VII of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS) in the matter concerning the Philippines and China”.
Mr Wang said in a statement posted on Wednesday on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website that the move by the three countries came at an inappropriate time and was not constructive.
He also expressed hopes that former Philippine President, Fidel Valdez Ramos, who has been appointed as a special envoy to China by President Rodrigo Duterte, will make a visit to China as soon as possible.
John Kerry left for the Philippines late on Tuesday.
Duterte’s spokesman Ernesto Abella said the president told Kerry that any bilateral talks with China will “begin with the ruling”. Their meeting took place as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice was visiting Beijing to cover some of the same issues.
The three countries issued the statement late on Monday at the conclusion of the trilateral strategic dialogue held between Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop and her United States counterpart John Kerry and Japan’s Fumio Kishida, on the sidelines of a South-east Asian regional security conference in Vientiane, Laos.
“And even when there are times of tension and stress, as we’ve seen over the questions in the South China Sea or otherwise”, Kerry told Yasay, “I know we can count on you and you know you can count on us”.
The U.S. “does not take a position on the side of one claimant or another claimant”, Kerry added.
US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, on a visit to China this week, told Chinese officials the US military operations were meant to contribute to “peace and stability” in the South China Sea. “They will continue, they’ve been long standing, they’ve been created to impart confidence and stability”, the official said, describing the stance that Rice made in her meetings.
Competing claims with China in the vital shipping lane and resource-rich sea are among the most contentious issues for the 10 members of ASEAN, who are pulled between their desire to assert their sovereignty while fostering ties with an increasingly assertive Beijing.
The award given by the Arbitral Tribuna is beyond the scope of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and has gravely violated the worldwide law and the general practice of global arbitration, and it does not stand for the worldwide law, he said.
Previously, China asked the Philippines to resume bilateral negotiations on the disputed territory, as long as they first officially ignored the Hague ruling.
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“It seems like certain countries from outside the region have got all worked up keeping the fever high”, Wang told reporters. The Philippines and Vietnam, both of which are ASEAN members, have been in a tense conflict with China over territorial rights to uninhabited islands in the South China Sea.
