PH to China: Let's resolve Spratlys through UNCLOS - InterAksyon.com

PH to China: Let's resolve Spratlys through UNCLOS - InterAksyon.com

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MANILA, Philippines -- In response to China's claims that the Philippine protest over the incursion of Chinese vessels into Philippine territory last Dec. is "baseless," Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario on Tuesday said territorial claims of contesting parties must be resolved through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS).

"The Philippines is prepared to validate our claims under UNCLOS, and we cordially invite China to join us in endeavoring to validate its own claims," he said in a statement.

"To peacefully and finally settle the disputes in the West Philippine Sea, it behooves conflicting claims to be resolved based on the rules-based regime of the UNCLOS," he said.

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Comment:

China does not wish to INTERNATIONALIZE the West Philippine Sea issue. Yet it insists on exercising acts of ownership in the area, obviously exploiting the use of its military and economic power and might outside of the quasi-judicial mechanisms of UNCLOS and the World Court. The Philippines must continue to make noise within the Asean regional dispute system and take legal UNCLOS and UN-based legal actions to defend its rights. Moreover, it must insure the countervailing presence of the USA in the Pacific to counter whatever abusive tendencies China may have as a world power.