As expected, the much awaited verdict of the Permanent Arbitration Court at The Hague announced on July 12 regarding a maritime dispute between China and the Philippines has concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources in the South China Sea area falling within the ‘nine-dash’ line.
The arbitration court further ruled that some of the waters were within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, because those areas are not overlapped by any possible entitlement of China and that China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights in those waters by interfering with its fishing and petroleum exploration and by constructing artificial islands. The ruling undermines China’s long-standing territorial and jurisdictional claims in the South China region.
China is opposed to any country engaging in oil and gas exploration and development activities in waters under Chinese jurisdiction. However, there are disputes regarding both the Spartly and Paracel islands as well as maritime boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin and elsewhere among several nations including China, Brunei, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Exploitation of crude oil reserves, natural gas under several parts of the South China Sea and the strategic control of important shipping lanes ostensibly form the cause of these disputes.
Nevertheless, despite claiming sovereignty over the area, China has repeatedly and unequivocally made it clear that it was ready to engage in peaceful negotiations and friendly consultations to peacefully resolve the disputes over territorial sovereignty and maritime rights, without foreign powers getting involved in the disputes between the countries of the region. Since the 1960s, China has settled boundary questions with 12 out of its 14 neighbours. China and Vietnam have delimited the maritime boundary in the Beibu Gulf through bilateral negotiations.
However, since the US has started refocusing on the area after a long prelude following the Vietnam fiasco, to expand its commercial and military interests, the region seems to have become the theatre of a new global chess game. The US has not only taken a number of daring naval expeditions in the jurisdictional area of China on the basis of freedom of navigation but has also been encouraging its allies like Japan, Philippines and other states to pursue their disputes with China more vigorously. It even signed a security pact with the Philippines in 2012.
In the past two years, China has built seven artificial islands in the South China Sea, including Fiery Cross Reef. Beijing says it owns the islands, rocks and shoals – and the waters around them – in a giant expanse of the South China Sea, overlapping with claims made by countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
As regards China’s dispute with the Philippines, it is noteworthy that before the 1970s the latter never made any territorial claims in the South China Sea. In the 1970s, the Philippines illegally occupied China’s maritime features in the Nansha Islands in violation of the UN Charter. These were the areas beyond the territory demarcated under the jurisdiction of the Philippines in the Treaty of Paris between the US and Spain in 1898, between the UK, Spain and the US delimiting the boundary between the Philippines Archipelago and the State of North Borneo in 1930.
China tried to resolve the dispute through bilateral negotiations; a solemn commitment by the Philippines made in the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC). However, the Philippines took some irresponsible and unilateral actions including exploration of oil and gas. China wrested control of shoal, used by Filipino fishermen in 2012. In early 2013, the Philippines filed a suit at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. China refused to take part in the proceedings, rightly maintaining that the action by the Philippines to invoke arbitration was against the spirit of the DOC and that the UN Convention on the Law of Sea did not apply in this case.
China was right in boycotting the proceedings of the arbitration court, because it is a basic principle of arbitration that the two parties to a dispute first agree among themselves to seek arbitration and after approaching the court give a firm commitment that the decision of the arbitration court would be binding. Nothing of the sort happened and the case was filed unilaterally. The rejection of the verdict by China is logically, legally and historically justified. The issues pertaining to territorial sovereignty do not fall under the purview of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea, under which the Philippines approached Hague for arbitration.
The decision of the arbitration court, which China has vehemently rejected, might lead to escalation of tension in the South China region, and encourage other littoral states to follow suit – putting a strain on their relations with China. Reacting to the verdict, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China’s territorial sovereignty and marine rights would not be affected by the ruling which declared large areas of the sea to be neutral international waters or exclusive economic zones of other countries. He, however, made it clear that China was still committed to resolving disputes with its neighbours through bilateral negotiations.
Though the Philippines and other states in the region have welcomed the decision and contend that it is binding on China to implement it, in view of the position taken by China, they are well advised to follow the agreed bilateral mechanism to resolve the disputes to avoid any possible military confrontation. The US should also refrain from provocative action in the region and from inciting the littoral states on adopting a hostile posture towards China.
Pakistan has rightly expressed support for the Chinese stance on the issue, saying it opposes imposition of unilateral will on others and that disputes over the South China Sea should be resolved peacefully through negotiations directly by the concerned states in accordance with bilateral agreements and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. This is a principled stand on the issue. A friend like China needs to be supported vigorously in view of an unjustified verdict.
The writer is a freelance contributor.
Email: ashpak10gmail.com