Fishermen’s group Pamalakaya holds a protest outside Chinese Consulate office in Makati City on Friday to denounce the Chinese Navy’s action prohibiting Filipino fishermen in contested waters in the Spratly Islands. The United Nations arbitration court will hear the Philippines’ claim next week in The Hague, the Netherlands. (MNS photo)
MANILA (Mabuhay) — A day before a United Nations tribunal hears the Philippines’ case against China, Beijing’s ambassador again asked Manila on Monday to consider direct negotiations to resolve their long-running territorial row over the South China Sea.
Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua has repeatedly conveyed China’s offer to hold bilateral talks with the Philippine government on their maritime conflicts, saying its door for consultation “is still open and will be open forever.”
“I think the best is to sit down bilaterally to talk. We need to resume our bilateral negotiation without any condition. I think this is the best way that we can discuss how to peacefully settle these disputes,” Zhao told journalists at his official residence after the Chinese government donated books to the National Library of the Philippines.
For the first time since Manila filed the case against China before the The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, a five-man panel of judges will conduct oral arguments from July 7 to 13 to determine jurisdiction over the Philippines’ complaint questioning Beijing massive claim in the resource-rich waters.
“Our door for bilateral consultation and negotiation is still open and will be open forever,” Zhao said.
But Philippine government officials said it is impossible to continue bilateral talks with China because of its “indisputable” claim over the waters, where undersea oil and gas deposits were discovered. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims to the waters.
A high-level delegation from the Philippines travelled to the Netherlands over the weekend to witness the legal proceedings in which Manila will defend its case and convince the tribunal to assume jurisdiction over it.
The delegation includes officials from all branches of government.
The Philippines will be represented by Solicitor General Florin Hilbay and the country’s Washington-based legal counsel Paul Reichler of Foley and Hoag, in a case which Filipino officials are hoping would resolve the maritime row.
The dispute is believed to be Asia’s next potential flashpoint for a major armed conflict.
China, which asserts ownership of nearly 90 percent of the resource-rich waters, has declared several times that it will not participate in the arbitration, saying Manila’s case are baseless and lacks legal merit.
The Philippines insists that arbitration is a peaceful and diplomatic way of resolving the disputes, while its move to seek intervention from an arbitral tribunal has gained support from many foreign governments, including the United States, Japan, and the European Union.
China prefers to negotiate one-on-one with its smaller neighbors, giving it leverage because of its sheer size and military power.
Zhao brushed off criticisms that China, which has turned seven formerly submerged features in the South China Sea into man-made islands with buildings and at least one runway, is militarizing the waters by turning it into defense outposts to strengthen its claim.
“What I would like to emphasize is that we do not wish to define these disputes as military issues because they are political and diplomatic issues and they require political and diplomatic solution,” he said. “China has never regarded the dispute as a military dispute.”
The envoy also maintained that China will not wage a war against the Philippines, saying “it is not China’s policy and will not be China’s policy.”
“Peaceful means, bilateral talks,” he said. (MNS)