MANILA: The Philippines chose the right course, an international think tank said of the country’s filing a case before an arbitral court on its overlapping claim with China in the Spratlys.
The Philippines may face repercussions for bringing its territorial dispute with China before an international court but complacency may be costlier, US-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report.
Gregory Poling of the CSIS in Washington said the submission of the memorial or written argument on the Philippines’ position to the arbitral tribunal in The Hague on March 30 “marks a bold step by Manila and one that Beijing seems to have believed never would actually happen.”
The nearly 4,000-page memorial explains in detail the Philippines’ arguments and evidence against China’s nine-dash line and other aspects of Beijing’s expansive and excessive South China Sea claims.
“Manila is paying a cost for its case, but it has correctly determined that the cost of complacency would be higher,” he said.
“The Philippines chose the right course. Now the international community must weigh in and convince China of that fact,” Poling said in a commentary.
China has rejected arbitration and even threatened the Philippines with sanctions for filing the memorial.
Poling said Manila has learned lessons from China’s intimidation, including the latter’s seizure of Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal and its effort to prevent Philippine ships from delivering supplies and provisions to a handful of Marines stationed at a grounded transport ship on Ayungin Shoal.
“The incident underscored a lesson that the Philippines learned well after Scarborough Shoal: China has no intention of compromising on its claims, restricting them to the bounds of international law, or treating fellow claimants as equal parties to the disputes,” he added.
Poling said there is a flaw in Beijing’s position that it is only claiming “islands and adjacent waters” within its nine-dash line.
He said Ayungin Shoal, called Ren’ai Reef by the Chinese, is not an island or even a rock but a low-tide elevation that is not subject to any independent territorial claim under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
“The shoal belongs to whoever has sovereignty over the continental shelf on which it rests – by all indications the Philippines,” he said. Poling said China has not restricted its underwater claims to the continental shelf of the Philippines.
He cited an incident in January involving three Chinese ships that patrolled James Shoal, a completely submerged feature on Malaysia’s continental shelf, and held a ceremony swearing to defend Chinese sovereignty over it.
The Philippine Star
