December 21, 2015

"The Philippines' South China Sea arbitration is a political provocation under the cloak of law. At the end of October, in disregard of basic facts and fundamental jurisprudence, the arbitral tribunal set up at the unilateral request of the Philippines rendered the award on jurisdiction and admissibility of the arbitration. Confusing black and white, the tribunal spared no effort to back up the Philippines' arguments, thus rendering support and encouragement to the Philippines' illegal occupation of China's territory and encroachment upon China's maritime rights and interests. Fraught with far-fetched and unfounded assumptions, the reasoning process of the tribunal was by no means based on facts, common sense or justice, and its positions were neither fair nor impartial.

What has truly happened cannot be covered up by an arbitration that ignores facts. The tribunal deliberately framed the previous consultations between China and the Philippines concerning disputes over territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation as consultations on the interpretation and application of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and affirmed these consultations as evidence that the Philippines had fulfilled its obligation in terms of exchange of views. As a matter of fact, China and the Philippines have never had any negotiations, not even exchange of views, on arbitration matters."

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http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/959743.shtml

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