JULY 8 (Reuters) — China said on Tuesday (July 7) that it opposed the arbitration case brought up by the Philippines against Beijing over territorial disputes in South China Sea.
Manila has sent a legal team of experts and high ranking officials in the Hague this week to fight in an unprecedented arbitration case under the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Philippine foreign ministry said.
It said Philippines will present their case this week at the Permanent Court of Arbitration to decide if the tribunal has jurisdiction to hear the legal arbitration case.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing would not accept the arbitration case.
“China has said many times it would not accept and would not engage into the the arbitration case that was unilaterally brought up by the Philippines who violates the consensus that has been repeatedly reached with China and violates the promise made in the Declaration on the Code of Conduct on the South China Sea. China opposes any actions by the Philippines to bring up and push forward the arbitration process,” Hua told reporters at a daily briefing in Beijing.
Manila’s team is preparing arguments to show that the nine-dash line claim is invalid under the Law of the Sea. They are also seeking clarifications of the territorial limits, under the law, of rocks and shoals such as Scarborough – all part of a bid to confirm the Philippines’ rights within its 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.
The claims of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei are bisected by China’s “nine-dash line” – the historic claim that reaches deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia.
Overlapping claims in the South China Sea – traversed by half the world’s shipping tonnage – are one of the region’s biggest flashpoints amid China’s military build-up and the U.S. strategic “pivot” back to Asia.