Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) told a routine press briefing in Taipei yesterday afternoon that the office appreciated Lu’s opinions, but that the government has taken measures to safeguard the nation’s rights over islands in the South China Sea and their waters. Or China could declare an Air Defense Identification Zone, similar to its actions following the 2013 dispute with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
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National Security Adviser Susan Rice will urge Beijing to avoid escalation in the South China Sea next week, when she makes the highest-level USA visit to China since an worldwide court rejected its sweeping claims to the strategic waterway.
Lu said that the government should seriously ponder filing a case with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany, to prove that the “biased ruling” is not legally binding.
Wu said that the South China Sea is related to China’s sovereignty, security and development interests.
The broadcaster came away with video of Chinese fishermen chopping up a coral reef ecosystem in what appeared to be a routine search for giant clams.
China’s foreign ministry issued a statement to China’s official news agency, Xinhua, saying “we hope relevant parties stop their groundless accusations against China and interference in China’s domestic affairs and contribute more to bilateral trust and cooperation”.
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China has always been maintaining the safety and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
Chinese researchers today claimed to have found the world’s deepest underwater sinkhole, or blue hole near the disputed islands in the South China Sea. They fear that China does not enforce the ruling. They also play a role in replenishing depleted fish stocks.
She also said the administration would not allow crises in other parts of the world, from Syria to Turkey to Ukraine, to distract from Obama’s signature policy of “re-balancing” towards Asia.
But China declined to participate in the proceedings of the global tribunal in The Hague. Its ruling has also clarified that EEZs should be respected.
Chinese state media subsequently denounced the ruling as “ill-founded” and questioned the tribunal’s motives, impartiality, and competence.
In an exclusive interview with the news agency, Rice is quoted as saying that the USA military would continue to “sail and fly and operate” in the South China Sea, despite a Chinese warning that such patrols could end “in disaster”.
While the agenda of the meetings is extensive, the focus behind the scenes is expected to be on the July 12 decision by a Hague-based tribunal in a dispute between China and the Philippines.
Kerry travels to Laos’ capital Vientiane on Monday for meetings of foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of South East Asia Nations where tensions between China and several ASEAN members, in particular the Philippines and Vietnam, over the South China Sea is expected to dominate talks.
“We therefore should not pay too much attention to whether the ASEAN meetings will or will not issue a final communique”, said Tran Cong Truc, a former head of Vietnam’s borders committee.
Carpio said the first phase “is to reopen the talks without preconditions”.
“But at this point only the Chinese, with the advantage of both numbers and technology, are capable of wiping out those fish stocks, one species after another”.
The two are scheduled to meet Saturday in Malacañang to discuss the country’s next move after the Permanent Court of Arbitration junked China’s nine-dash line claims.
This would include fisheries management. China neither accepts nor recognizes that result. They could conceivably share the fish stocks there, he said.
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The platform, adopted on Monday, says China has been asserting “preposterous” claims to the South China Sea to distract its people from economic problems, practices “cultural genocide” in Tibet and Xinjiang, and reaffirms a commitment to sell weapons to self-ruled Taiwan. The only viable option is to “set aside disputes and develop jointly”. More recent data was not available.
