At a briefing following Monday’s Think Tank Seminar on the South China Sea and Regional Cooperation and Development, Director General Wang Lei from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ (CASS) Bureau of International Cooperation said that experts at the seminar discussed ways to settle and solutions to maritime disputes in the South China Sea, as well as overall regional cooperation and development. China rejected the ruling and refused to participate in the case.
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China will never accept any kind of dispute settlement by third party and will not accept any idea thrust upon it, he said. China has gone through lots of trouble, building islands, moving missiles and filming videos to assert its claim, and finally we learn why, to claim yet another world record!
Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoia Trung told The Associated Press this week that his country would aim to settle its disputes with China through bilateral negotiations something China has pressed Southeast Asian countries for even though it doesn’t rule out applying worldwide laws.
There is speculation in the Chinese media that the exercise could consider use of the disputed Woody island (Yonxing island as called by China) in the Paracel (Xisha) island chain, but not the Spratly islands, which have drawn sharper global attention.
The United States has been repeatedly blamed by China for fuelling tension in the disputed regions through its military patrols.
China has recently taken part in U.S.-led multinational naval drills in the Pacific and a USA defense official said he did not expect the China-Russia exercises to affect US military activity or behavior in the South China Sea.
The offensive words were apparently written over the faint imprint of the nine dash-line which marks China’s territorial claim on the South China Sea.
“The arbitral award is an issue between China and the Philippines”.
Yang Yujun, the Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman, made the announcement on Thursday, saying the exercises will be carried out in the “relevant sea and air of the South China Sea”.
As Franz-Stefan Gady noted for The Diplomatat the time, “given that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) North and East Sea Fleets hosted previous Sino-Russian naval drills, it appears likely that this year’s iteration of the Joint-Sea exercise will be hosted by the Nanhai [South Sea] Fleet, the PLAN fleet responsible for the South China Sea”.
Li Guoqiang, deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies, said that Vietnam has a “long-standing irrational emotional reaction” to the South China Sea issue.
Xi and Putin meet frequently and their countries, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, often take similar stances there on divisive issues such as the conflict in Syria.
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei all have overlapping claims with Beijing in the South China Sea, while Indonesia claims some fishing rights.
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Yang Zuosheng, a professor at the Ocean University of China, said researchers used a variety of methods to ascertain the hole’s depth.
