China holds 3-day military drill in South China Sea

Eagle News — Beijing closed off access to part of the South China Sea for military drills, after an international tribunal ruled against its sweeping claims in the waters.

China’s maritime administration on its website said that an area off the east coast of China’s island province of Hainan hosts military exercises from today until Thursday.

The area of sea identified is some distance from the Paracel Islands and even further from the Spratlys, with both chains claimed by Beijing and several other neighboring states.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague last week ruled that there was no legal basis for Beijing’s claims too much of the sea, embodied in a “nine-dash line” that dates from 1940s maps and stretches close to other countries’ coasts.

Manila — which lodged the suit against Beijing — welcomed the decision, as China dismissed it as a “piece of waste paper”.

Despite Chinese objections, the European Union weighed in on the subject at a regional summit this weekend.

“The EU will continue to speak out in support of upholding international law, including when it comes to the united nations convention on the law of the sea,“ Donald Tusk, European Council President said.

Diplomats said, China pressured countries in the ASEAN block of Southeast Asian nations not to issue a joint statement on the ruling.

Beijing held military drills in the South China Sea just days before the international arbitration court ruling.

China has rapidly built reefs in the waters into artificial islands capable of military use.

In a separate message on its website, the maritime administration said last week that four out of five lighthouses built atop islands and reefs in the sea have been activated, and a fifth would be put into use soon.

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