Tag: UN-backed tribunal

Beijing faces S.China Sea rebuke at Europe-Asia summit

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia (AFP) — Beijing faces an international dressing down Friday at a gathering of leaders from across Asia and Europe after it vehemently rejected a UN-backed tribunal’s dismissal of its extensive South China Sea claims. The biennial Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, is supposed to be a venue for increasing cooperation across the Eurasian continent and exploring ways to strengthen the global system of agreements that govern everything from […]

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China warns against ‘cradle of war’ in sea

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China warned its rivals Wednesday against turning the South China Sea into a “cradle of war” and threatened an air defense zone there, after its claims to the strategically vital waters were declared invalid. The surprisingly strong and sweeping ruling by a UN-backed tribunal in The Hague provided powerful diplomatic ammunition to the Philippines, which filed the challenge, and other claimants in their decades-long disputes with China over the resource-rich waters. […]

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Beijing reasserts claims over South China Sea

BEIJING, China (AFP) — Beijing insisted Wednesday that it had sovereignty over the South China Sea, defying an international tribunal ruling that its claims to a vast swathe of the waters had no legal basis. China was “the first to have discovered, named, and explored and exploited” the islands of the South China Sea islands and their waters, and had “continuously, peacefully and effectively exercised sovereignty and jurisdiction over them”, Beijing said in a white […]

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Philippines v China: facts about a much-watched legal battle

MANILA, Philippines (AFP) — A UN-backed tribunal is expected to soon deliver a verdict on a Philippine challenge to China’s claims to most of the South China Sea. Spanning three years, two hearings, and nearly 4,000 pages of evidence, the arbitration case at The Hague is complex. In essence, China claims most of the sea, even waters approaching neighbouring countries, based on a vaguely defined “nine-dash” Chinese map dating back to the 1940s. The Philippines […]

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