Editor’s note:
On Friday, Manila marked the eighth anniversary of the so-called South China Sea arbitration, with supportive statements from the United States and other countries. Below is an excerpt of a statement on that issued by the Chinese embassy in the Philippines:
The South China Sea arbitration case is essentially a political farce cloaked in legal garb. The Philippines violated the consensus with China to resolve their disputes through bilateral negotiations, contravened the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, and abused the dispute resolution mechanism of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The arbitral tribunal overstepped its authority and delivered an unlawful and invalid judgment. China neither accepts nor recognizes the so-called ruling and rejects any claims or actions based on it. This stance is supported and understood by over 100 countries, with many international legal experts and scholars criticizing and questioning the arbitration ruling.
Despite this, the Philippines holds the illegal ruling of the South China Sea arbitration case as its guiding principle, even at the cost of sacrificing Sino-Philippine relations, and has in fact fallen into the trap set by the United States and Western countries, becoming a tool for some countries to build an anti-China and China-containing group. The Philippines regards the ruling and UNCLOS as the two cornerstones of its policies and actions in the South China Sea, but the ruling itself is a serious deviation from the Convention, exposing the contradiction in the Philippines’ position. The Philippines’ stubborn adherence to its wrong position and its insistence on the result of the ruling will only push it further down the wrong path.
The illegal ruling of the South China Sea arbitration does not constitute international law at all, but instead undermines the international rule of law. The advisory opinions issued by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea focus on addressing climate change and marine environmental protection issues, and do not involve territorial and maritime disputes, nor do they involve the validity of the ruling in the South China Sea arbitration case. Any attempt to confuse the public with sensationalist hype will be futile, as it cannot cover up the illegal and invalid nature of the ruling, nor can it change China’s firm determination to defend its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.
China is willing to continue to work with the Association of Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines, to manage maritime differences, deepen maritime cooperation, comprehensively and effectively implement the DOC, actively promote consultations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, and jointly maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea.
The US is the real instigator of the South China Sea arbitration case.