“It depends on our comprehensive judgment”, Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told a press briefing in Beijing. Relations between Beijing and Manila plummeted over the row. Accordingly, I continue to urge ASEAN to implement the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and begin to finally resolve maritime disputes in the region.
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Chang’s deputy, Lin Cheng-yi (林正義), said the government “will not cooperate with China on the sovereignty issue in the South China Sea”.
Duterte’s foreign secretary, Perfecto Yasay Jr., reacted to the ruling by saying that government lawyers would study the 479-page decision before deciding what to do next. The Philippines understands this point very well and this is why it should want to seek bilateral talks with China after the ruling.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen boarded a navy frigate in southern Taiwan ahead of its departure for the South China Sea early on Wednesday, a regular patrol pushed forward due to the Hague decision, which Taipei rejected.
China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, was even more blunt about the tribunal’s ruling. China has long wanted to negotiate directly, and analysts said dialogue rather than conflict was the most likely scenario.
China justifies its sovereignty over the sea – outlined in a vague map – by claiming it was the first country to discover, name and exploit it.
China’s ADIZ over the East China Sea is not recognized by the US and others.
The Hague-based arbitration court ruled Tuesday that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to resources in the South China Sea areas falling within the “nine-dash line” and that all high-tide features in the Spratly Islands, including Taiwan-controlled Taiping Island (also known as Itu Aba), are legally “rocks”.
“By doing that the Aquino administration severely violated the agreement between China and Philippines and the consensus in the region, breached relevant provisions under UN Convention on Law of Seas (UNCLOS), infringed upon China’s right as a sovereign state and state party to UNCLOS to resolve disputes by means of its own choice and went against global law”, he 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.
Bishop called on all parties to respect the ruling, which she described as final and legally binding.
US officials say the ruling will narrow the geographical scope of territorial disputes in the South China Sea and could provide an impetus for fresh diplomacy among the claimant nations. The gesture of defiance would damage both its reputation and other territorial interests, not least its claims against Japan in the East China Sea, which rely on UNCLOS’s continental-shelf provisions.
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The Philippines brought the case against China to an arbitral tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). But China has reiterated that it has no intention of recognizing the court’s ruling.
