The Philippines received a rebuke for the first time from its traditional allies — the United States, Australia and Japan — for not pressing its legal victory in its territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea.
The Philippines received a rebuke for the first time from its traditional allies — the United States, Australia and Japan — for not pressing its legal victory in its territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea.
In a joint statement issued on Monday in Manila, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Foreign Ministers Julie Bishop of Australia and Taro Kono of Japan expressed serious concerns over “reclamation” and “militarization” in the South China Sea, which were oft-repeated accusations leveled at China.
They called on China and, for the first time, the Philippines to abide by the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that invalidated Beijing’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea and upheld Manila’s sovereign rights to its exclusive economic zone.
“The ministers called on China and the Philippines to abide by the arbitral tribunal’s 2016 award in the Philippines-China arbitration, as it is final and legally binding on both parties, ” the ministers said.
They said the tribunal’s decision was “significant” in the discussions among the parties to peacefully resolve their maritime disputes.
Tillerson, Bishop and Kono held a trilateral dialogue on the sidelines of two major regional gatherings hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on Monday: the 18-nation East Asia Summit and the 27-nation Asean Regional Forum.
In the statement, they called on the South China Sea claimants to “resolve disputes peacefully in accordance with international law” and abide by the international law of the sea as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) .
