Taipei, Aug 2 (IANS) The Taiwan government on Sunday reaffirmed its sovereignty claim over islands in the South China Sea after the Philippines shared an official nautical chart of Scarborough Shoal with the United Nations, local media reported.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) said any disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved peacefully as per international law and the law of the sea, and called for Taipei’s inclusion in the multilateral dispute settlement mechanisms, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported.
Taiwan’s MoFA statement comes after the Philippines shared an official nautical chart of Scarborough Shoal with the UN last week to reiterate its claim over the atoll claimed by Manila, Taipei, and Beijing.
In a statement issued on Friday, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said: “The deposit was made pursuant to Article 16 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).” It stated that the Law of the Sea requires coastal states to give publicity to official charts depicting the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured, the CNA reported.
Scarborough Shoal is called Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines, Democracy Reef in Taiwan, and Huangyan Dao in China, and is claimed by all three nations.
On July 31, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised the Philippines over delimitation of the so-called “baselines of the territorial sea” of Huangyan Dao, terming it “illegal, null, and void”. It stated that the Philippines’ move was “a grave infringement” upon China’s territorial sovereignty and a serious violation of international law, including the United Nations Charter and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
“China firmly rejects and will never accept it. Huangyan Dao is China’s inherent territory. China has indisputable sovereignty over it and its adjacent waters, and has sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the relevant waters. China has continuously, peacefully and effectively exercised sovereignty and jurisdiction over Huangyan Dao,” it said in a statement.
“The territory of the Philippines has been defined by a series of international treaties, and Huangyan Dao has never been a part of it. The Philippines’ illegal territorial claim over China’s Huangyan Dao is completely baseless under international law,” it added.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Philippines’ unilateral initiation of the “South China Sea arbitration” violates the fundamental principles of international law, including pacta sunt servanda and estoppel, and international law, including UNCLOS, the bilateral agreement between China and the Philippines and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC).
–IANS
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