After destroying Philippine boats, seriously wounding a sailor, stealing food, water and other provisions, including seven automatic rifles, for the Marine contingent on BRP Sierra Madre at the Ayungin Shoal, China still has the gumption to lecture that “the Philippine side should face the consequences of its own actions.”
This haughty statement by Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning tells us everything we need to know about a country that squats at the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Philippines and had violated its word to leave Panatag Shoal in 2012 only for its Coast Guard vessels and fisheries militia to skulk their way into the shoal, a traditional fishing ground for the fisherfolk of Zambales and Pangasinan. How could then anyone take China’s word seriously? Since 2012, the Chinese have been soiling the waters of Panatag Shoal, dumping bilge water in the area and destroying the reefs that host millions of fish.
Mao Ning doesn’t know whereof she speaks. She barks a lot about the transgressions of the Philippines in the disputed area, insisting that on July 4 that “Philippine vessels were carrying out an illegal resupply mission which violated China’s territorial waters and staging a provocation when stopped by China Coast Guard, who acted lawfully and rightfully to defend China’s sovereignty.” She thinks that the victims asked to be victimized by her machete-wielding ruffians who destroyed rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) and stole rifles to be assembled by Philippine Marines. Thus, wealthy China will stiff the Philippines P60-million by not paying for the damage Mao Ning’s Coast Guard crews inflicted.
A lesson in geography would be fine for Mao Ning’s edification. “Ayungin Shoal is 423.30 nautical miles from the Paracels, and 617.39 nautical miles from the Chinese mainland – clearly beyond the 200 nautical miles maximum maritime entitlement for an exclusive economic zone under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),” the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) disclosed. Thus, China cannot nauseatingly claim that its territorial waters extend to Panatag Shoal, which is 993.9979 kilometers from China and 881.413 kilometers from the Paracels, and is not entitled to an inch of the sea beyond its own EEZ that extends 322-kilometers beyond its shores.
The 11-dash line sketched by Kuomintang oceanographers does not legitimize China’s vacuous claim over 90% of the South China Sea (SCS) and the same oceanographers stressed that the sketch is not a historical claim, does not constitute the metes and bounds of Chinese territory but only delineates where in the SCS may Beijing claim some islets. Last month, China assembled about 100 scholars in a conference to buttress Beijing’s claim to SCS maritime features and goaded them to manufacture the “historical evidence,” maritime records and historical accounts that would prove China owned 90% of the SCS.
China had 422 years since 1602 to prove that even before the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648, its national boundaries had already swept deep into Bhutan, India, Tibet, Sikkim and Siberia and that ancient Han Chinese populated Okinawa and much of Korea. Curiously, the Ming emperor was surprised that the world was bigger than he had imagined and his empire was puny compared to the 850 points enumerated in the Ricci-Li map.
China also ratified the 1982 UNCLOS and all covenants pertaining to the resolution of disputes between parties through tribunals and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague. When China dismissed the 501-page PCA ruling on July 12, 2016 as a “mere scrap of paper,” it also exposed itself as a double-faced bad faith actor in the community of nations. Yet this is consistent with its trampling of the treaty between the United Kingdom and China that paved the way for the Hong Kong handover. With the Hong Kong handover pact dashed to smithereens and China not respecting the UNCLOS and other covenants it has signed, Beijing’s reputation is shot. How can anyone now consider China credible and Mao Ning’s statements as weighty as a grain of salt?
As China wriggles with the realization that its claim to the SCS is not recognized by more than 180 countries and supported only by a handful of its client-states, it also has to contend with the fact that its continental shelf extends only to Hainan and around its barren waters. It cannot radiate 993.9979 kilometers to intrude beyond the Philippine EEZ. So, China cannot lawfully exercise sovereignty over Panatag Shoal, the Ayungin Shoal and other maritime features that it claims. The much-touted 1602 Ricci-Li map of the Ming Dynasty does not cover the Panatag and Ayungin Shoals as the original map says China has nothing to do with area beyond the 12th parallel.
