Beijing “has the right” to declare an air defence identification zone over the South China Sea, it said Wednesday as it stepped up denunciations of an global tribunal that ruled against its expansive claims in the strategic waters.
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The Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague issued a verdict Tuesday in the case Philippines vs. China, siding with the Philippines on all counts and rejecting Chinese claims that nearly the entire sea “historically” belongs to Beijing.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled 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.
But China appears to be in the minority – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also said Thursday as he left for Mongolia that he wanted to discuss the South China Sea at the summit.China claims almost all of the sea – which is of enormous military importance and through which about $5 trillion worth of shipping trade passes annually – even waters approaching the coasts of the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations.
“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”.
The militant fisherfolk group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya-Pilipinas) on Wednesday urged President Rodrigo Duterte to tighten control and claim on the disputed West Philippine Sea (WPS) even as it insisted that asserting Philippine rightful claim in the disputed area should be in any peaceful way possible.
China has vowed to ignore the ruling. US challenged those claims by ordering a warship into waters near the artificial islands.
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen is indignant at the United Nations arbitration tribunal’s decision to deny China – and Taiwan – their maritime claims in the South China Sea.
Liu also said that Beijing was hoping to return to bilateral talks with the Philippines over the South China Sea. Beijing could take more assertive measures such as island building on Scarborough Shoal, a reef off the Philippine coast where a standoff with China prompted the Philippines to initiate the legal case in 2013. Relations between Beijing and Manila plummeted over the row.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said he was “dumbfounded” when he saw the reports provided by the ministries and departments that attended the meeting, as post-ruling evaluations of possible repercussions were not given.
China was “the first to have discovered, named, and explored and exploited” islands in the sea and their surrounding waters, the document said.
This issue has produced a schism between countries aligning themselves with China, whose biggest supporter is Russian Federation, and those aligning themselves with the United States.
Meanwhile, Taiwan has objected to part of the tribunal’s decision, which declared islands claimed by Taiwan to be rocks that can’t be used to establish maritime rights.
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Foreign affairs secretary, Perfect Yasay said Philippine’s experts are “studying the Award with the care and thoroughness that this significant arbitral outcome deserves”.
