Definitely, not President Rodrigo Duterte.
If this sets the tone for post-Decision Philippine-China relations, there’s a good chance that talks on the disputed waters will achieve something positive.
Duterte had the good sense of letting Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay issue the statement who simply welcomed the decision and called for restraint and sobriety.
Yasay was heavily criticized by not looking happy over the decision that was overwhelmingly in favor of the Philippines.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled today that China’s all-encompassing nine-dash line is not valid.
(To read the 501-page Award, please click to this site: https://pca-cpa.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/175/2016/07/PH-CN-20160712-Award.pdf)
“The Tribunal found that China’s claim to historic rights to resources was incompatible with the detailed allocation of rights and maritime zones in the Convention and concluded that, to the extent China had historic rights to resources in the waters of the South China Sea, such rights were extinguished by the entry into force of the Convention to the extent they were incompatible with the Convention’s system of maritime zones,” the decision said.
The Tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources, in excess of the rights provided for by the Convention, within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line
The Hague-based U.N. Artbitral Court is expected to decide on the case on July 7.
In Jan. 2013, the Philippine asked the U.N. court to
1. declare as illegal China’s all encompassing nine-dash line map;
2. declare as part of Philippine 350 nautical mile continental shelf low tide elevations (rocks or shoals that are seen only during low tide) where China has built permanent structures;
3. declare that the waters outside the 12 nautical miles surrounding the Panatag Island (Scarborough shoal) should be declared as part of the Philippines 200 natutical mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
The Republic of China (ROC) or Taiwan has its issue with mainland China (PROC-People’s Republic of China) but in matters of ownership of almost the whole of South China Sea, they have the same line.
In the statement released by Taiwan Tuesday, it asserted that Nansha islands also known as Spratly Islands; Shisha (Paracel) islands, Chungsha Islands Macclesfield Bank) and Tungsha (Pratas) Islands, as well as their surrounding waters, are an inherent part of ROC territory and waters.
“As the ROC enjoys all rights to these island groups and their surrounding waters in accordance with international law, the ROC government does not recognize any claim to sovereignty over, or occupation of, these areas by other countries, irrespective of the reasons put forward or methods used for such claim or occupation,” the statement said.
No ifs and buts about it: the Philippines and China are no longer friends.
That’s a decision that the Philippines made when it hauled China to the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal over the latter’s all -South -China -Sea-encompassing 9-dash line map. As former ambassador to the United Nations Lauro Baja said, “When we filed a case against China at the U.N. that was the end of diplomacy.”
The submission of the Memorial on the case today at the U.N. Court’s headquarters at The Hague further reinforced the hostility.
As a sovereign country, the Philippines has every right to choose who to be friends with and who to take on. The Aquino government has chosen to battle with China. It’s a move applauded by allies who are uncomfortable with the enormous strength of modern China but are hesitant to antagonize the world’s second largest economy.
By Ellen T. Tordesillas, VERA Files
Despite Chinese requests to delay it, the Philippines is filing on March 30 its memorandum challenging before the United Nations China’s territorial claims over the South China Sea.
The memorandum, called a Memorial in international law, will be filed with the Arbitral Tribunal of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) at The Hague in the Netherlands, contesting China’s 9-dash line territorial rule.
Under the 9-dash line rule, China claims almost the whole of the South China Sea as part of its territory, but the Philippines and three other Southeast Asian nations are staking various claims to parts of the area.
Sources said the Chinese government had asked President Aquino through back channels to wait a little longer before filing the Memorial.