State-run China Daily showed a world map in its website showing India among the countries supporting China’s stand.
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Beijing claimed it had historical rights within a “nine dash line”, an area encompassing most of the South China Sea-it reiterated this claim in a 33-page white paper released after the ruling.
“The award further affirms our collective belief that right is might and that worldwide law is the great equalizer among states”, former Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, who spearheaded the filing of the arbitration complaint against China in 2013, said, referring to the ruling.
While the Philippines is still crowing about their “victory” in the South China Sea Tribunal hearing at the Hague, with China today insisting they don’t consider the Tribunal to mean anything, and that they intend to defend their claims in the South China Sea the same as before.
In another blow to China, the tribunal also ruled that none of the features in the Spratly Islands, claimed in whole by China, Vietnam and Taiwan and in part by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, were technically speaking islands but were either low-tide elevations with no territorial claims or rocks that can not sustain human habitation of their own and thus have only a territorial sea but not an economic zone.
“The ruling can serve as a foundation on which we can start the process of negotiations, which hopefully will eventually lead to the peaceful settlement of the maritime dispute in the South China Sea”, Charles Jose, a spokesman for the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs, said.
Chinese state media had denounced the impending verdict weeks before and also trumped up the fact that China had received support of 60 nations with regard to its policy on the South China Sea. The US, on the other hand, can respond to China’s belligerence with trade sanctions and even egg on the Philippines to take the matter to the International Court of Justice.
While the atmosphere is much more positive than a month ago, before Benigno Aquino III stepped down as president, China won’t be willing to adopt the tribunal’s findings as the basis of talks.
The ruling is binding but the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no powers of enforcement.
Li Jie, a Chinese expert on the matter, said Beijing is mulling its options in the wake of the court rulings.
“We believe that this should not be a time for provocation or inflammatory comments or actions”.
“They will really try so they would know where they have a right and if the (Chinese) would honor the law”, Mayor Arsenia Lim of Masinloc town said.
The objective was not to pick a fight with China at the disputed Scarborough Shoal, but to set a limit on its military coercion, Blair said.
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“I’ll ask the help of the coast guard to help our fishermen”, she said.
