The US yesterday called on rivals in the disputed South China Sea to back up territorial claims with legal evidence — a challenge to China’s declaration of sovereignty over vast stretches of the region.
“We also call on all parties to clarify their claims in the South China Sea in terms consistent with customary international law,” US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at Asia’s largest security conference.
“Claims to maritime space in the South China Sea should be derived solely from legitimate claims to land features,” she said.
The South China Sea row has taken center stage at this week’s meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum on the Indonesian island of Bali, where the US, China and Southeast Asian nations have discussed the future of the potentially resource-rich region.
Taiwan, China and four ASEAN members — the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam — all claim territory in the South China Sea, while Washington has irritated Beijing by declaring it also has a national interest at stake in ensuring freedom of navigation and trade.
China’s claim is the biggest and Beijing says it has had indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea since ancient times.
Beijing on Thursday agreed to take preliminary steps with its Southeast Asian neighbors to establish a “code of conduct” for the South China Sea, a step Clinton said could ease tensions that have rattled the region as disputes between China, Vietnam and the Philippines heat up.
However, she indicated yesterday that the US would push for more clarity on the subject, suggesting that all nations involved should delineate their claims according to the 1982 international Law of the Sea.
The Philippines also said China’s claims had no validity under international law.
US officials said many of the national claims to territory in the region were exaggerated and that many nations had also preferred to legitimize claims based on historical precedent rather than land features.
Clinton said the US had no claim to the South China Sea and took no position on the relative merits of competing claims.
However, she said the US, as a maritime nation, did have an interest in ensuring that disputes were resolved peacefully and called on all countries involved to avoid exacerbating the situation.
Clinton said the recent surge in tensions over the South China Sea threatened regional peace, while warning against using force to solve the dispute.
“The United States is concerned that recent incidents in the South China Sea threaten the peace and stability on which the remarkable progress of the Asia Pacific region has been built,” Clinton said. “They should exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes,” she said.
A senior US official said Clinton’s move to invoke the Law of the Sea to assess claims could require many countries to dig for solid evidence to back up their territorial assertions.
The US itself has signed, but not ratified, the Law of the Sea.
However regional claimants do belong to the convention, although there remains no clear international procedure for adjudicating rival claims.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique