US officials urge other nations to push back against Beijing's South China Sea claims

Senior US State Department officials have expressed hope that the agency’s detailed study concluding China’s assertions in the South China Sea are unlawful will enable other nations to push back against Beijing’s claims.

The 47-page research paper released by the State Department on January 12 states that China’s maritime claims, which has stoked tensions and disputes with rival claimants the Philippines, Vietnam and other Asian nations, have no basis under international law.

“We do hope that this is part of an ongoing push by nations who are conforming to regular international practice to push back on the PRC’s illegal maritime claims,” said Constance Arvis, acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans, Fisheries, and Polar Affairs, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

“We certainly hope that in addition to the 11 countries that we’ve already noted that have issued public statements against the PRC’s inconsistent, illegal claims, that others do so as well,” Arvis added. 

At a press briefing in Washington on Monday, Arvis said she hopes the paper, an update of a 2014 study on China’s disputed nine-dash line map that covers a huge swathe of South China Sea, “will provide information that our partners and allies can make use of.”

With the release of the study, the US reiterated its call on China to conform its maritime claims to international law and to cease its unlawful and coercive activities in the South China Sea. Washington ally, the Philippines, which sued China before a United Nations-backed tribunal and won, welcomed the State Department report.

China makes massive territorial claims in the resource-rich South China Sea, where the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan have overlapping claims. Manila has renamed parts of the waters that fall within its territory as the West Philippine Sea.

In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands, following a case filed by the Philippines, invalidated China's sweeping claims over the waters. Beijing does not recognize the ruling.

Jung Pak, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said the South China Sea dispute is “an issue for all of us.”

“The South China Sea represents – it’s an important international waterway,” Pak said.

She stressed that many nations’ economic livelihoods and prosperity and openness depends on this waterway, with an estimated $3 trillion of commerce taking place annually.

“So it is – of course it’s of strategic importance for the United States and of our allies and partners to ensure that there’s freedom of navigation and that there are no unlawful claims that the PRC has been advocating for,” she said.

Pak said the US intends the report to be useful and have the legal underpinning for its allies and partners in countering China’s claims. — VBL, GMA News