Beijing
(AFP) - Beijing's claims to a vast swathe of the South China Sea are invalid,
an international tribunal ruled Tuesday, dealing a devastating diplomatic blow
to its ambitions in one of the world's most important flashpoints.
China,
which boycotted the proceedings at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in
The Hague, rejected the ruling, calling it "null and void".
But
analysts said it was a "huge win" for the Philippines, which brought
the case.
The
resource-rich, strategically vital waters of the South China Sea are disputed
between the Asian giant -- which claims almost all of them on the basis of a
"nine-dash line" that first appeared on Chinese maps in the 1940s --
and several other countries including the Philippines.
The row has
embroiled the United States, which has deployed aircraft carriers and a host of
other vessels to assert freedom of navigation in waters through which one-third
of the global oil trade passes.
China says
that its fishermen have visited the area for centuries, but the PCA tribunal
said that under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Beijing had
not had exclusive control of it.
Any
historic rights were "extinguished" when it signed up to UNCLOS, it
said, and there was "no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to
resources within the sea areas falling within the 'nine-dash line'," it
said.
Crucially,
it ruled that none of the Spratlys, a chain of outcrops in the south of the
sea, were "islands" under the meaning of UNCLOS, meaning that whoever
had sovereignty over them -- an issue it did not address -- they were not
entitled to 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of their own.
'Branded
as an outlaw'
Some sea
areas were therefore definitely in the Philippines' EEZ, it said, as they were
"not overlapped by any possible entitlement of China".
China had
violated the Philippines' sovereign rights in its EEZ and the artificial
islands Beijing has been furiously building in recent years -- reshaping facts
in the water in an effort to bolster its claim -- have inflicted severe
environmental damage, it added.
The damning
decision was "as unfavourable to China as it can be", said Yanmei
Xie, China analyst for the International Crisis Group.
The award
by the five-member panel -- chaired by a Ghanaian -- "overwhelmingly
favours the Philippines -- a huge win," said M. Taylor Fravel of MIT.
Manila
welcomed the decision but Beijing reacted furiously, saying it "neither
accepts nor recognises" the ruling.
"The
award is null and void and has no binding force," China's foreign ministry
said on its website, reiterating its territorial claims.
The
official news agency Xinhua cited President Xi Jinping as saying the islands
have been Chinese territory since ancient times, and Beijing will not accept
any action based on the decision.
China has
consistently said the tribunal does not have jurisdiction on the issue --
declaring the support of multiple countries for its stance, many of them poor
but with significant trading relationships with it -- and Xinhua reported the
ruling under the headline: "Law-abusing tribunal issues ill-founded award".
In
Washington, the State Department said the ruling was an "important
contribution" to resolving regional disputes and should be seen as
"final and legally binding".
China is a
permanent member of the UN Security Council and has been seeking a greater role
on the global diplomatic stage, and will not want to be seen as a violator of
international law.
But how the
decision could be enforced remains open to question. Richard Heydarian, a
political analyst at De La Salle University in Manila, told AFP: "China has
been branded as an outlaw in unequivocal terms. US, Japan and other major
powers should now focus on enforcing this binding verdict if China fails to
comply."
In the
short term, the decision was likely to escalate the "war of words"
but would not immediately change the geopolitical dynamics in the sea, said Xie
of the International Crisis Group.
"We?re
going to see a continuation of the chest thumping we've seen, especially from
the China side."
'Tough
reaction'
Beijing has
held naval drills between the Paracels and the southern Chinese island of
Hainan in recent days, while US Pacific Command said on Twitter that the
aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan had launched flight operations to support
"security, stability" in the South China Sea.
Bonnie
Glaser of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies told AFP: "I
expect a very tough reaction from China since it has lost on almost every
point."
China could
choose to withdraw from UNCLOS, or begin building on Scarborough Shoal, which
it seized from the Philippines in 2012 -- which Washington would view as a
provocation.
Beijing
could also declare an air defence identification zone over the South China Sea,
claiming the right to interrogate aircraft passing through the airspace, or try
to remove a ship grounded by Manila on Second Thomas Shoal for use as a base.
Xu Tiebing,
international relations professor at Communication University of China, told
AFP that Chinese would see the PCA decision as evidence of international
opposition to their country.
"These
international organisations were not absolutely neutral, and in fact they are
still subject to the manipulation and influence of big powers," he said.
The
Philippines, which had lodged the suit in 2013, welcomed the "milestone
decision", and foreign secretary Perfecto Yasay said: "We call on all
those concerned to exercise restraint and sobriety."
Nationalist
demonstrations are not rare in China, sometimes apparently with the tacit
backing of authorities, and the Philippine embassy in Beijing has warned its
citizens to beware of personal "threats".
Chinese
police sealed off the street where the mission stands.
— AFP news agency (@AFP) July 12, 2016
Related Articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.