HEADLINE-ASIA GEOPOLITICS | Beijing has ‘a lot of legal weapons’ to challenge Manila’s claims in South China Sea, international law expert says
Beijing still has plenty of countermeasures it could use against Manila if tensions between the two countries continue to escalate in the South China Sea, according to a seasoned legal expert who specialises in the region.
“[China has] a lot of legal weapons and has not used them yet,” said Fu Kuncheng, a specially appointed research fellow with the Belt and Road Institute at Xiamen University in southeast China. He previously served as dean of the university’s South China Sea Institute – the first research organisation at a university in mainland China to focus on the region.
Traditional fishing rights could be one option in Beijing’s legal toolkit against Manila, he said during a speech on Thursday at the Beijing-based think tank Grandview Institution.
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“Within the archipelagic waters of the Philippines, not only in the Sulu Sea but in many other areas, Chinese fishermen have the right to fish,” said Fu, who has served as an arbitrator in various arbitration tribunals in mainland China, Taiwan and Russia.
Beijing could also challenge the Philippines’ claim to the Kalayaan group of islands, over which Manila began asserting its sovereignty in the 1970s, said the international law expert.
Fu said Beijing could target Manila’s archipelagic baselines, the imaginary lines drawn around an island group that define its national boundaries and help establish its territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. He noted that more than 3 per cent of the Philippines’ baselines exceed 125 nautical miles, violating regulations set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
He added that China could demand Manila to open transit passages for Chinese aircraft and ships through the Philippines archipelago to comply with its obligations under Unclos.
The South China Sea is the site of multiple overlapping territorial claims by several countries, and the risk of military conflict in the region has grown since last year.
The vital waterway carries one-third of global shipping and is home to vast mineral, oil and gas resources. Some observers have said the South China Sea could be a more explosive flashpoint for a US-China crisis than the Taiwan Strait.
Beijing and Manila, a key ally of Washington in the region, have been locked in tensions over disputed reefs in recent months, especially the Second Thomas Shoal, known as Renai Jiao in China and Ayungin Shoal in the Philippines.
The Second Thomas Shoal is located within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. But China claims sovereignty over the reef as well as the entire Spratly Islands, which it calls the Nansha Islands.
The Chinese claim over the area was declared invalid by an international arbitration court at The Hague in 2016 in a case brought by the Philippines, but Beijing rejects the decision as “null and void”.
Stronger defence ties between the US and the Philippines have also drawn China’s ire.
Tensions between the two neighbours have continued to stew in the new year as the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theatre Command held patrols in the South China Sea this week, coinciding with two days of joint US-Philippines military drills in the same area.
Beijing said that “muscle-flexing, provocative military activities” by Manila and Washington were not conducive to managing the situation or handling maritime disputes.
“China will continue to firmly safeguard our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a press conference on Thursday.
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This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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