Hague Rules Against Beijing on South China Sea Claims
July 12th, 2016…China throws toys.
Via: Guardian:
China has lost a key international legal case over strategic reefs and atolls that it claims would give it control over disputed waters of the South China Sea.
The judgment by an international tribunal in The Hague is overwhelmingly in favour of claims by the Philippines and will increase global diplomatic pressure on Beijing to scale back military expansion in the sensitive area. By depriving certain outcrops of territorial-generating status, the ruling effectively punches holes in China’s all-encompassing “nine-dash” line that stretches deep into the South China Sea.
China reacted angrily to the verdict, which declares large areas of the sea to be neutral international waters or the exclusive economic zones of other countries. Xinhua, the country’s official news agency, hit out at what it described as an “ill-founded” ruling that was “naturally null and void”.
The Communist party mouthpiece newspaper the People’s Daily said in an editorial that the tribunal had ignored “basic truths” and “tramped” on international laws and norms. “The Chinese government and the Chinese people firmly oppose [the ruling] and will neither acknowledge it nor accept it,” it added.
I think that if Israel is allowed to ignore international law decisions, then so too is China.
Calm