The Philippines has consistently stood up to Chinese bullying in the South China Sea, including by filing a maritime-rights case with United Nations arbitrators. China has now published an official response inadvertently confirming that its behavior is as legally dubious as it is aggressive.
The Philippines initiated arbitration nearly two years ago, after Chinese coast guard and civilian vessels drove Filipino fishermen from Scarborough Shoal, a reef 120 miles off the main Philippine island of Luzon. At the time China was also moving to drill for oil off the coast of Vietnam and sending ships to cut acoustic cables from Vietnamese and U.S. vessels in international waters. All of which followed Beijing’s 2009 publication of a map asserting “indisputable sovereignty” over almost the entire South China Sea, as illustrated by a nine-dash line in the shape of a U.
So Manila sought arbitration under the U.N. Law of the Sea Convention, to which China and its neighbors are parties. Beijing responded by disinviting Philippine President Benigno Aquino from a trade fair and laying siege to another Philippine-held shoal. It also refused to participate in the arbitration, denying its authority and insisting that Manila had broken promises to handle disputes through bilateral negotiations.
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