China’s reaction to PH protest: In a regular briefing in Beijing today, spokesman of China’s foreign ministry Hong Lei said: “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and adjacent waters.”
“China owns sovereignty and jurisdiction over the related sea area, seabed and subsoil,” Hong pointed out.
By Tessa Jamandre
VERA FILES
The Philippines has lodged a diplomatic protest against China’s 9-dash line territorial claim over the whole of South China Sea, a month before President Aquino’s planned state visit to Beijing.
The Philippine protest, dated April 5, was posted by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) as document No. 000228 on April 8.
But the Philippine government tarried in filing the protest, doing so two years after Vietnam and Malaysia, and a year after Indonesia. Vietnam and Malaysia filed their protest a day after China submitted its 9-dash line map to the UN on May 7, 2009. Indonesia registered its protest a year ago, even if it did not have a claim on the South China Sea.
The map is called “9-dash line” or “9-dotted line” because it shows a series of nine dashes or dotted lines forming a ring around the South China Sea area, which China claims is part of its territory. The area includes the Spratlys group, a cluster of oil-rich islands disputed by five other countries, including the Philippines.
China has been using the map with nine dashes in asserting its territorial claim over the whole of the South Sea. But the map first made its way to the UN body, when China used it to challenge the claim made by Vietnam and Malaysia over their extended continental shelves in the South China Sea.