Ancient map won’t help RP in UN case, says China

From the Daily Tribune (Jun 10): Ancient map won’t help RP in UN case, says China

China doused cold water on the chances of the government’s plan to submit an almost 300-year-old map to the United Nations Tribunal on the Law of the Sea in The Hague which supposedly shows that Huangyan Island or the dispute Scarborough Shoal is part of Philippine territory, in helping the Philippines’ case in the arbitration case.

Scarborough Shoal is where China is undertaking a massive reclamation work as part of its efforts to solidify its claim on the disputed area.

The government is banking on the map, first published in 1734, to disprove the nine-dash-line claim of China in proving that almost the entire South China Sea is within its territory.

“The map cannot help the Philippines regarding its territorial claims,” Zhuang Guotu, a professor from the Research School for Southeast Asian Studies of Xiamen University, said as he emphasized the role that the 1898 Spanish-American War played in the dispute.

The US took over Spain’s colonies including the Philippine islands in 1898 but “did not take control of Huangyan Island according to Zhuang.”

“The island was not a part of the Philippines either after the country gained independence in 1946,” he added.

“It is common to depict surrounding areas on a map. It is for sure the map can not prove that the islands belong to the Philippines,” Global Times quoted Zhuang as saying.

“The tribunal has its own way to reach a judgment … Anyone who knows history or law will see that the map will not help the Philippines,” Zhuang argued.

China, however, maintained that The Hague tribunal’s decision has no binding effect on it.

According to China’s position paper on jurisdiction in South China Sea arbitration released last year by Chen Qinghong, a research ­fellow from the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceania Studies under the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, the tribunal “has no jurisdiction over this arbitration, unilaterally initiated by the Philippines.…

“[The arbitration] will not change the history and fact of China’s sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands and adjacent waters,” it added.

Senior Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said a definitive ruling from UN body on the border conflict with China will ease the tension in the region.

Speaking with a Spanish academic, Carpio underscored that a favorable ruling by the Netherlands-based Permanent Court of Arbitration on the Philippines’ case against China may help reduce the tension over the territorial dispute in the South China Sea adding that if the tribunal declares China’s controversial nine-dash line as invalid, then Beijing cannot claim as sovereign territorial waters the entire South China Sea.

Carpio was interviewed with Mario Esteban of the Elcano Royal Institute in Madrid, Spain, as part of the former’s series of lectures on the West Philippine Sea in Europe where he spoke about the ongoing territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing.

Carpio said a ruling by the arbitral tribunal favorable to Manila will reduce the area of the conflict from the entire South China Sea to the islands, which he added, can be managed by claimant countries.

“If the Tribunal will declare the nine-dash line as void, therefore, China cannot claim as sovereign territorial waters the entire South China Sea. It will have to limit its claim to the islands and the 12-nautical mile territorial sea. So that will drastically reduce the area of conflict from the entire South China Sea to the islands and that kind of conflict over small islands can be managed,” Carpio said in the transcripts, copies of which are provided by the SC Public Information Office.

“Our problem now is China claims the entire South China Sea, and that is a problem for our fishermen because these are their traditional fishing grounds, and if they go there now they will be water cannoned. So if we have a favorable ruling, the area of the dispute will be reduced considerably and we can leave on that kind of dispute,” he added.

He explained that if the nine-dash line is allowed to stand by the Tribunal, then it will have far-reaching consequences since other countries may use it to claim entire seas in their region.

“If the Tribunal will allow the nine-dash line to stand, then the law of the sea, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, will not apply in the South China Sea. If it can’t apply in the South China Sea, it cannot apply in other seas or oceans because other naval powers will demand the same rights as China. We cannot create an exemption because naval powers will also demand an exemption. Why is China alone being given an entire sea? India will claim the Indian Ocean. I think we will go back to the 1200, the 1300, 1400 or the 1500 where nations tried to claim the oceans and seas as their own,” he said.

Carpio said nations claiming entire oceans and seas as their own were a thing of the past adding that this has been settled in the 1600 between two great scholars, Hugo Grotius and John Selden.
He said maritime territorial disputes are now governed by UNCLoS signed by 165 countries, including the Philippines and China.

“We are trying to get a ruling from the Tribunal that the nine-dash line has no basis under international law. China can claim the islands and territories, and we can discuss that over time, but in this time and age, no state can claim an entire sea anymore. That era long passed and settled a long time ago. We are now under the UNCLoS,” he said.

He added that the UNCLoS is very clear in that countries are only entitled to 12 nautical miles territorial sea and additional Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 nautical and at most, 150 nautical miles of continental shelf.With this, he said “no one country can claim the entire sea.”

“That’s all over now, that idea in the 1600 that the world has rejected and China is reviving today,” he further said.

If the territorial dispute is allowed to fester and flares into military conflict, Carpio said “the world economy will be in danger because more than one half of the seaborne trade of the world passes through the South China Sea.

”He called on the European Union to support a ruling of the Tribunal. Once there is a ruling, we expect the EU to also support the ruling because this is a ruling of an international tribunal in which the EU is a member,” he said adding that the entire international community should also follow suit in supporting such ruling.

The Philippines took China to the arbitral tribunal in January 2013 as it challenged the legality of the latter’s nine dash line claim over nearly the entire South China Sea, including areas included in the country’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

The DFA said the country expects that it will finally resolve the territorial dispute in the South China Sea through peaceful means as well as clarify the country’s maritime entitlements.

China has refused to participate in the arbitral proceedings and insisted on bilateral negotiation with the Philippines to resolve the territorial dispute.

Its claims over the South China and its aggressive stance, including the reclamation activities in Kagitingan, Zamora and Panganiban Reefs as well as the building of artificial islets over Mabini, Burgos, Calderon and Kennar Reefs has rattled the nerves of other claimant countries, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam.......

http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/ancient-map-won-t-help-rp-in-un-case-says-china