Beijing says won't accept South China Sea verdict, state-run media calls tribunal 'ridiculous'

NEW DELHI: China has said it neither accepts nor recognizes The Hague tribunal's verdict against its claims to territories in the South China Sea . That was expected. But that China would heap abuses on the tribunal was perhaps not expected.

Through its state-run news agency Xinhua, China has called the case - now won by the Philippines - a "farce". Xinhua cited "experts" as saying the tribunal was "illegal and ridiculous because of the questionable selection of its members and its flawed jurisdictional findings".

The tribunal in The Hague on Tuesday rejected China's claims to economic rights across large swathes of the South China Sea in a ruling that will be claimed as a victory by the Philippines.

China's President Xi Jinping used more measured language in his response to the media. However, he has his state-run media at his disposal to say what his government really thinks.

China "is dedicated to maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea but will not accept any positions or actions based on the outcome of the arbitration case over the dispute," Xi told Reuters.

"The award is null and void and has no binding force," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
What Chinese media says

The state-run media's article says a lot more.

China believes "the selection of the members of the tribunal is questionable" and that it was "biased", Xinhua writes.

The tribunal, established by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, doesn't think so.

"There was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the 'nine-dash line'," the court said, referring to a demarcation line on a 1947 map of the sea, which is rich in energy, mineral and fishing resources.

Tribunal is biased, says China

The state-run Xinhua quoted Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as saying the arbitration case has put the dispute into the dangerous territory of worsening tensions and confrontation.

China says the tribunal's members were biased "as most of them were picked by Shunji Yanai, then ITLOS (the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea) president and former Japanese ambassador to the United States," Xinhua writes.

China's state-run media agency goes on to describe Yanai as a "famous Japanese right-winger" and adds that his creation of the arbitral tribunal "is believed to be biased as he initially picked Judge Chris Pinto of Sri Lanka" as a tribunal member. And that was a problem, Xinhua writes, because Pinto's wife is a Filipino national.

Xinhua's report does say that Pinto was later replaced in the tribunal by a Ghanain judge, but despite that the tribunal was biased. The other judges were France, Poland, the Netherlands and Germany.

"He (Wanai) assembled five lawyers of international law into a biased arbitral tribunal, which is tilted toward the Philippines and ignored what China stands for," Chinese Ambassador to The Netherlands Wu Ken is quoted as saying.
With inputs from Agencies