Beijing has denounced a “thoroughly illegal” international tribunal that ruled against its expansive claims in the South China Sea, with a senior diplomat describing it as a “thorn” in the side of its relationship with the Philippines on the 10th anniversary of the decision.
In an article published in People’s Daily on Sunday, Jing Quan, the ambassador to the Philippines, said clearing its “lingering toxic legacy” was a matter of the utmost urgency.
“The most important task for Manila today is to … abandon illusions and remove this stumbling block to allow bilateral relations to return to the right track,” Jing wrote in the Communist Party mouthpiece.
Beijing’s sweeping claims of sovereignty over nearly all islands, rock features and the rights to the adjacent waters in the South China Sea have locked it into long-standing disputes with rival claimants, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
In 2013, Manila took the unprecedented step of launching an arbitration case under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
The tribunal in The Hague ultimately ruled that although it could not rule on questions of sovereignty, Beijing’s claims to historical and economic rights over most of the features in the South China Sea were invalid.
