Beijing: China on Saturday affirmed its commitment to resolving disputes with other regional countries over rights in the South Sea. The Chinese news agency, Xinhua, quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying that Beijing was ready to address the disputes in the South China Sea through negotiations and implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.
According to Kuwait News Agency, the ministry was reacting to statements by the Philippine Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo marking the ninth anniversary of a ruling that had been issued by an interim court in the Hague. This ruling was in response to a libel unilaterally filed by Manila in July 2016 regarding the South China Sea issue. The Chinese foreign affairs department considered Manila's legal move as a breach of the declaration, which partly stipulates that the regional stakeholders should seek to resolve strifes peacefully through cordial and direct consultations.
The ministry statement highlighted grave errors in the Philippine libel document, such as describing the 500,000-sq-m Taiping island as a shoal, thereby denying the existence of economic zones or a continental shelf, contrary to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). China will not accept any arbitration in this respect from the said court, the statement said, and urged the concerned regional countries to abstain from provocations and breaches at the arbitration pretext.
The court in the Hague ruled on July 12, 2016, that China enjoys no historic rights in the South China Sea.