Subi Reef, a Chinese man-made island complete with an airstrip and fortifications, in the South China Sea.
New Delhi: The United States, on Monday, formally rejected almost all Chinese maritime claims in the disputed South China Sea.
US President Donald Trump’s administration presented the decision citing China’s increasing assertiveness in South China Sea with a commitment to follow the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Aligning its position with July 12, 2016 decision of the UN-backed arbitration tribunal, the US administration, in a strongly worded statement, said: “The United States champions a free and open Indo-Pacific. Today we are strengthening US policy in a vital, contentious part of that region – the South China Sea. We are making clear: Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them.”
Calling China a “bully”, the statement said: “Beijing uses intimidation to undermine the sovereign rights of Southeast Asian coastal states in the South China Sea, bully them out of offshore resources, assert unilateral dominion, and replace international law with ‘might makes right’. Beijing’s approach has been clear for years. In 2010, then-PRC foreign minister Yang Jiechi told his Asean counterparts that ‘China is a big country and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact.’ The PRC’s predatory world view has no place in the 21st century.”
The statement further said: “The PRC has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region. Beijing has offered no coherent legal basis for its ‘Nine-Dashed Line’ claim in the South China Sea since formally announcing it in 2009. In a unanimous decision on July 12, 2016, an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention – to which the PRC is a state party – rejected the PRC’s maritime claims as having no basis in international law. The tribunal sided squarely with the Philippines, which brought the arbitration case, on almost all claims.”
The US statement then ended the statement by vowing to disallow Beijing’s threat of treating the South China Sea as its “maritime empire” and reassuring its Southeast Asian allies by saying America stands with them in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources, consistent with their rights and obligations under international law and reject any push to impose “might makes right” in the South China Sea or the wider region.
Separately, in a series of tweets, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, tweeted that his country was strengthening its policy on South China Sea maritime claims, “according to international law, in rejection of Beijing’s intimidation, bullying, and claims of maritime empire.” He further said China has no legal grounds to impose its will on the region and claim resources off the coasts of Southeast Asian states.
We are strengthening U.S. policy on South China Sea maritime claims, according to international law, in rejection of Beijing’s intimidation, bullying, and claims of maritime empire.
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) July 13, 2020
The PRC has no legal grounds to impose its will on the region and claim resources off the coasts of Southeast Asian states.
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) July 13, 2020
It is noteworthy to mention that the US state department statement was released on a after the fourth anniversary of a binding decision by a UN-backed arbitration panel in favour of the Philippines, which rejected China’s maritime claims around the Spratly Islands. China had rejected the decision calling it a “sham”, and didn’t participate in the panel’s proceedings.
Since then, China embarked on aggressive actions that triggered maritime and diplomatic friction with the Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
