China unyielding as RP argues case before UN

From the Daily Tribune (Jul 9): China unyielding as RP argues case before UN

Beijing: Tribunal has no jurisdiction over dispute

The Philippines has appealed to an international tribunal to declare China’s claims to most of the South China Sea illegal, warning the integrity of United Nations’ (UN) maritime laws is at stake, an argument which only hardened China’s position to reject the proceeding.

In opening comments to the tribunal in The Hague yesterday, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said the country has sought judicial intervention because China’s behavior had become increasingly “aggressive” and negotiations had proved futile.

China up to the other day, however, was offering the holding of bilateral negotiations to settle the dispute.

Prior to Philippines’ filing of the case with the arbitral body, detente was observed over the disputed territories in South China Sea. 

Lately, however, China had started reclaiming land over some of the disputed areas which were believed to have been triggered by the UN arbitration case that it refused to recognize.

Del Rosario said the UN’s Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLoS), which the Philippines and China have both ratified, should be used to resolve their bitter territorial dispute.

“The case before you is of the utmost importance to the Philippines, to the region, and to the world,” del Rosario told the tribunal.

“In our view, it is also of utmost significance to the integrity of the convention, and to the very fabric of the legal order of the seas and oceans,” he said.

China insists it has sovereign rights to nearly all of the South China Sea, a strategically vital waterway with shipping lanes through which about a third of all the world’s traded oil passes.

Its claim, based on ancient Chinese maps, reaches close to the coasts of its regional neighbors including the Philippines.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims to parts of the sea, which have for decades made it a potential military flashpoint.

Tensions have risen sharply in recent years as a rising China has sought to stake its claims more assertively.

China maintained that the international tribunal has no jurisdiction over the dispute.

In a commentary in state-run Global Times, China said the Philippines unilaterally initiated in 2013 compulsory arbitration against China on the basis of Part XV of the UNCLoS.

“It skilfully fragments the dispute with China into various free-standing-appearing entitlement claims, while steadfastly avoiding sovereignty and delimitation,” it said.

“The Philippines’ fragmentation magic cannot conceal the sovereignty-delimitation nature of the dispute,” it said.

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in a statement, said the government’s rejection of bilateral talks with China will force the superpower to take a more hardline position in the maritime dispute.

“China opened the door and we shut it. The Chinese said let’s talk and we snubbed them. It’s like the Philippine government itself is encouraging China to take and maintain an unbending stance on the issue,” Marcos said.

Marcos said in a forum that the Philippines will not lose anything by accepting the Chinese invitation to a dialog.

“So talk, and tell them: we are not happy with what you are doing and we do not agree with what you are doing. But the next thing you say is: how do we fix this?” Marcos, vice chairman of the Senate committee on foreign relations, said.

Marcos has called on the government to agree to or initiate bilateral talks with China when it aggressively started erecting structures in areas the Philippines is claiming as either parts of its sovereign territory or within its 200 nautical (370 kilometers) mile exclusive economic zone.

“We do not want war. Arbitration is not one that is going to be recognized by the Chinese. So it has to be negotiations,” Marcos said.

Following a stand-off between Chinese ships and the weak Filipino Navy in 2012, China took control of a rich fishing ground called Scarborough Shoal that is well within the country’s exclusive economic zone.

China has also undertaken giant reclamation activities that have raised fears it will use artificial islands to build new military outposts close to the Philippines and other claimants.

China has rejected all criticisms over its actions, insisting it has undisputed sovereign rights to the sea.

However, Del Rosario told the tribunal in the Hague that China’s argument of claiming the sea based on “historic rights” was without foundation.

“The so-called nine dash line (based on an old map used by China) has no basis whatsoever under international law,” he said.

The Philippines submitted its case to the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, a 117-state body that rules on disputes between countries, in early 2013.

Del Rosario’s comments, held in closed door proceedings but released the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), were part of the Philippines’ opening oral arguments.

China has refused to participate in the proceedings and said it will not abide by any ruling, even though it is has ratified the UN’s Convention on the Law of the Sea. China, however, junked one condition in the same agreement.

However the Philippines hopes a ruling in its favor will pressure China into making concessions.
Any ruling from the tribunal is not expected until next year.

RP to clarify entitlements

Del Rosario reiterated however that the Philippines is not appearing before the tribunal to seek a ruling on sovereignty but to clarify maritime entitlements based on the UNCLoS.

“It has acted forcefully to assert them, by exploiting the living and non-living resources in the areas beyond the UNCLOS limits while forcibly preventing other coastal States, including the Philippines, from exploiting the resources in the same areas – even though the areas lie well within 200 M of the Philippines’ coast and, in many cases, hundreds of miles beyond any EEZ or continental shelf that China could plausibly claim under the Convention,” Del Rosario said.

“We are here because we wish to clarify our maritime entitlements in the South China Sea, a question over which the Tribunal has jurisdiction. This is a matter that is most important not only to the Philippines, but also to all coastal States that border the South China Sea, and even to all the States Parties to UNCLoS,” he added.

Del Rosario further assailed the claims of China, saying that UNCLoS does not recognize, or permit the exercise of “historic rights” in areas beyond the limits of the maritime zones that are recognized or established by UNCLoS.

After Del Rosario’s speech, Paul Reichler, chief counsel for the Philippines, presented the justification for the Tribunal’s jurisdiction over the Philippine claims under UNCLoS.

Professor Philippe Sands followed Reichler’s presentation by stating that the Philippines did not raise questions of sovereignty over land or raise questions of maritime delimitation.

“China has made it pretty clear of not accepting nor participating in the South China Sea arbitration case unilaterally initiated by the Philippines,” Hua Chunying, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said.
“The arbitration violates the consensus the Philippines has affirmed with China on many occasions, as well as its solemn commitment made in the Code of Conduct. China opposes any actions taken by the Philippines to initiate and push ahead with the arbitration,” Hua said.

Marcos said rejecting China’s offer to hold bilateral talks with the Philippines is limiting the government’s strategic options to stop China from antagonizing not only the Philippines, but all the other claimant-countries in the West Philippine Sea.

“We should not be snobbish. I can’t see any reason at all why we are not talking to China. On the contrary, there are more than enough obvious reasons why we should talk to superpower China,” he said.

He acknowledged that with China’s own geopolitical interests and its concern over the presence of the Americans in the area, bilateral talks between Manila and Beijing “are not going to be easy.”

“We’re strategically important to any great power in Asia-Pacific, but we have to play that role even-handedly. We have to stop thinking in terms of siding with the Chinese or siding with the Americans. Our allies are mainly the Filipinos,” Marcos said.

“What is the national interest, what is good for the Philippines, that’s all that we have to be thinking about,” he added.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/china-unyielding-as-rp-argues-case-before-un