South China Sea arbitration
All attempts to stir up trouble and sow discord doomed to fail: Chinese Foreign Minister reiterates position on ‘South China Sea arbitration’ case
China is accelerating consultations with ASEAN countries to reach an early conclusion of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, and to build a new narrative for the South China Sea featuring peace, cooperation, and friendship, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday in Kuala Lumpur during the 15th East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, noting that all attempts to stir up trouble and sow discord are doomed to fail.
Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, stated that the so-called « South China Sea arbitration » case unilaterally initiated by the Philippines failed to meet the essential prerequisite of conducting adequate prior consultations, violated the principle of party consent, which forms the basis of arbitration, and thus lacked the legal elements for initiating arbitration from the outset.
The Philippine side’s actions contravened the provisions of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which stipulates that dispute should be resolved peacefully through friendly negotiations between direct parties, and reneged on the commitments made by the Philippines in bilateral agreements with China, thereby violating the principle of estoppel in international law, according to Wang.
Wang noted that despite the various attempts to package the arbitration, the essence of the Philippines’ claims pertains to China’s territorial sovereignty over China’s Nansha Qundao and directly involves maritime delimitation. Territorial issues, however, fall outside the jurisdiction of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and maritime delimitation was explicitly excluded by the Chinese government in 2006, he added. Lire la suite »
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