Two weeks after the arbitral tribunal of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea issued its award to the Philippines, China continues to seek to undermine the legitimacy on the tribunal, making charges bordering on the slanderous against the judges concerned. While affirming “China’s non-acceptance and non-recognition of the so-called award,” the […]

ANALYSTS have criticized the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) for doing China’s bidding, which was championed by Cambodia, China’s agent country in Asean, to disregard the UNCLOS Tribunal’s landmark ruling granting the Philippine petition against China’s takeover of the Philippine territories in the South China/West Philippine Sea and ordering China to stop its aggressive […]

OF the many issues ruled upon by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, two are of utmost importance to the Philippines – our oil exploration at Recto Bank and fishing by Zambales fishermen at Scarborough Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc. There was a finding of destruction of reefs in some islands in […]

BERLIN – China has been expanding its frontiers ever since it came under communist rule in 1949. Yet no country dared to haul it before an international tribunal till the Philippines in 2013 invoked the dispute-settlement mechanism of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), setting in motion the arbitration proceedings […]

Some countries may want to use the verdict to needle China, but the neighbourhood has reacted cautiously, to ensure that any gains from political negotiations are not undone by the award. A fisherman repairs his boat overlooking fishing boats that fish in the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, at Masinloc, Zambales, in […]

In this Nov. 24, 2015, image provided by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a tribunal of five arbitrators, seated top right, hears the case regarding the Philippines and China on the South China Sea at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague, the Netherlands. A landmark ruling on an arbitration case filed by […]

It has not been a good month for China. On July 12, an international court of arbitration at The Hague handed the Philippines a huge victory over China in the struggle over the South China Sea. A few days before that, South Korea decided to go forward with the deployment of the US Army’s Terminal […]

NEW YORK: China’s state news agency Xinhua has said that a video for the disputed South China Sea is being shown on a billboard in New York’s Times Square. Launched last Saturday (Jul 23), the promotional video will continue to be screened on the billboard until Aug 3, according to Xinhua. Xinhua has leased the […]

BOSTON – President Xi Jinping seems to agree with the Athenian general who, more than 2,000 years ago, warned the people of Melos that the strong do what they wish and the weak do as they are compelled. His government insists that nearly all the South China Sea belongs to China — even islets and […]