THE PHILIPPINE government said it filed a new diplomatic protest against China over disputes in the South China Sea, a long-thorny issue that has flared anew as newly-elected President Bongbong Marcos prepares to take office.
The Philippines has filed
hundreds of diplomatic protests against Beijing in recent years for what it
considers acts of aggression in the disputed waters, despite improved ties
between Beijing and Manila under outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, whose
six-year term ends on June 30.
The territorial conflicts are
among the key challenges Marcos will face when he takes office after his
landslide electoral victory on May 9. He has said he will use diplomatic means
with China over the issue, the same approach adopted by Duterte, who has been
criticized for not taking a more aggressive stance against Beijing’s
increasingly assertive actions in the resource-rich and busy waterway.
The Department of Foreign
Affairs said it filed a diplomatic protest on May 31 over China’s imposition of
an annual fishing ban lasting three and a half months that covers areas in the
disputed waters where “the Philippines has sovereignty, sovereign rights and
jurisdiction.”
It said the ban is not limited
to Chinese fishing vessels and violates the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of
the Sea and a 2016 arbitration tribunal’s decision that invalidated Beijing’s
vast historic claims in the strategic waterway and upheld the Philippines’
sovereign rights in a stretch of coastal waters called its exclusive economic zone.
China does not recognize the
arbitration ruling and continues to defy it.
The Chinese ban “has no basis
in law, and undermines the mutual trust, confidence, and respect that should
underpin bilateral relations,” the Foreign Affairs said.
“The Philippines calls on China
to comply with its obligations under international law” and “cease and desist
from the conduct of illegal actions,” including its “annual practice of
declaring a fishing ban over areas that extend far beyond China’s legitimate
maritime entitlements,” it said.
Separately, Filipino foreign
affairs officials said they summoned a Chinese diplomat in early April to
protest alleged harassment by the Chinese coast guard of a research vessel in
the South China Sea.
They said they were reviewing
other recent violations of Philippine rights in Second Thomas Shoal and Reed
Bank, which lie within Manila’s exclusive economic zone but which China also
claims, before taking further diplomatic action.
The department said it summoned
a Chinese Embassy official in Manila to protest the “harassment by the Chinese
coast guard” of research vessel R/V Legend, which was undertaking a survey of
undersea fault lines along the Manila Trench west of the northern Philippines.
Philippine diplomats did not
provide other details, but people involved in the scientific research told The
Associated Press that a Chinese coast guard ship shadowed R/V Legend, which was
carrying five Filipino scientists and an unspecified number of Taiwanese
counterparts, from March 25 to 30.
A Chinese coast guard ship
maneuvered about 2 to 3 nautical miles (3 to 5 kilometers) from the R/V Legend,
causing concern among the scientists because the research vessel was towing a
long survey cable in the sea, said Carla Dimalanta, of the National Institute
of Geological Sciences, at the University of the Philippines.
The offshore survey, which was
scheduled to end April 13, was a joint project of the Philippine institute and
the National Central University in Taiwan and aimed to help map offshore faults
and other geologic features that could set off earthquakes, tsunamis and other
hazards. The research was partly funded by the Philippine Department of Science
and Technology, she said.
The Filipino scientists
reported the incident to the Philippine government, which deployed a coast
guard patrol ship, the BRP Capones, to keep watch on the research vessel, the
coast guard in Manila said last month.
China, the Philippines,
Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei have been locked in a tense territorial
standoff in the busy waterway for decades.
In past years, the Philippines
has protested the Chinese coast guard’s blocking of Filipino supply ships en
route to Second Thomas Shoal, where Filipino marines stand watch on a
long-marooned navy ship. Chinese ships have also disrupted Philippine vessels
exploring for undersea oil and gas in Reed Bank, Philippine officials said. (By
Jim Gomez, AP)
