What are so-called 'eight facts' of the Philippines?

On July 15, the Philippine Foreign Ministry issued a statement presenting what it described as the "eight facts" on the South China Sea issue.

The claims represent both an exaggeration and a distortion of the true position.

Firstly, The Philippines tries to avoid the responsibility for interrupting negotiations between the two countries. The Philippine statement recognizes that China and the Philippines have exchanged communications on many occasions concerning the dispute over the South China Sea, but claims that no progress has been made in consultations for the past 17 years. It asserts that the reason for this is that China continues to insist on its indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea, and that in these circumstances the Philippines can no longer continue bilateral consultations.

Secondly, The Philippines continues to seek international sympathy for its cause and to lobby for international arbitration. The Philippines argues that it has always hoped to deal with the South China Sea dispute through politics, diplomacy and arbitration, but China has offered no positive response. The Philippines claims that it has “exhausted all political and diplomatic means for a peaceful solution to the dispute", and has been forced to go the way of international arbitration.

Regardless of China’s objections, The Philippines earlier this year submitted the South China Sea territorial dispute to the arbitration tribunal established by the Seven Sea Attachments, in accordance with the UN marine convention on the Law of the United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. This requires mandatory arbitration. The Philippines has two fundamental objectives here: one is to further a strategy of permanent occupation of Chinese territory and exploitation of oil and gas resources around the China islands by denying Chinese sovereignty over the area; the other is to manipulate the international community and create international pressure on China by creating an impression that China refuses to abide by international rules.

The arbitration litigation submitted by the Philippines involves matters such as territorial entitlement, marine delimitation, and military activities, but China takes the position that it already owns the disputed territories, and is therefore exempt from any international jurisdiction and arbitration under international law. The Philippines hopes to establish questions of territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests of the two countries as problems to be solved by international arbitration through a selective application of the scope of the United Nations marine convention, consciously ignoring the important principle of international law that ‘land dominates sea’. The Philippines attempts in vain to deny the nine-dotted line and sovereignty of the South China Sea islands in accordance with the United Nations marine convention.

Edited and Translated by Zhang Qian, People's Daily Online

Read the Chinese version:菲律宾“8点事实”都是啥货色（望海楼）; source: People's Daily Overseas Edition, author: Jia Xiudong

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