The test flights were conducted a day after an global tribunal in The Hague ruled that Beijing’s claims to areas of the resource-rich sea have no legal basis in an arbitration launched by the Philippines, whose “sovereign rights” it said China had violated. In the past, the USA was accused of escalating tensions in the South China Sea by conducting “freedom of navigation” naval operations, forging alliances with countries with competing claims on the area and being selective with the implementation of worldwide law.
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The verdict also reinforced that “law, and not politics, is the basis of decision-making at sea”, Peter Dutton, director of China Maritime Studies Institute, US Naval War College, Washington, said.
It said China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights and had caused “severe harm to the coral reef environment” by building artificial islands.
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.
An air defence zone in the area would mean civilian aircraft flying over the waters would have to identify themselves to military controllers in order to safely pass through.
Duterte asked former president Ramos “go to China to start the talks” with Beijing after the UN-backed tribunal’s ruling on the strategically vital waters, though he did not specify a timeframe.
China claims nearly all of the resource-rich South China Sea, even over territory also claimed by the Philippines as well as Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. Beijing reacted angrily, claiming it had historical rights to the sea and rejecting the tribunal’s ruling.
The ruling is expected to further increase tensions in the region, where China’s increased military assertiveness has spread concern among its smaller neighbours and is a point of confrontation with the US.
The ministry also reiterated its consistent position that “the freedom of navigation and overflight should be safeguarded in the South China Sea, one of the world’s major sea lines of communication”.
Apart from China, the South China Sea is also claimed in full or parts by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
China justifies its claims by saying it was the first to have discovered, named and exploited the sea, and outlines its claims for most of the waterway using a vague map made up of nine dashes that emerged in the 1940s.
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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.
