A supreme court justice of the Philippines holds President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in such high esteem that he said he would nominate him for a Nobel peace prize if his East and South China Sea peace initiatives produces good results for regional peace and stability.
Philippine media outlet Interaksyon, on Wednesday reported that Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines Antonio Carpio made the remarks during a speech to students and faculty at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila last week.
The media quoted Carpio as telling his audience that it was only his personal view, which might not necessarily be in line with the Philippine government position.
Carpio reportedly quoted Ma as saying that the government of the Republic of China (ROC) announced the geographic locations of its islands in the South China Sea in 1947, when most other nations only had the concept of territorial waters, but not of other sea territories.
In September last year, during a visit to Academia Historica in Taipei, Ma said that when the ROC sent Navy ships to take over the islands in the South China Sea that had been occupied by Japan during World War II, no countries lodged a protest.
Besides elaborating on the legitimacy of Taiwan’s claims of sovereignty over the islands, Ma put forth a proposal that basically extended his call for peace in the East China Sea by urging all parties concerned to peacefully resolve their disputes over the South China Sea islands.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has relied on the ROC government’s “nine-dash line” map to claim that the PRC has “indisputable territory” over the South China Sea, including over islands, reefs, shoals and waters claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan and their ASEAN neighbors, according to the Interaksyon report.
Carpio has found a new diplomatic weapon in Ma that could help the Philippines in its lopsided battle against China and its overarching ambition to convert the entire South China Sea into its private garrison, it said.
It said that Carpio supports Ma’s position that the ROC’s “nine-dash line” map of 1947 is limited to the islands and their adjacent territorial waters within the South China Sea, and that the ROC government, according to Ma, had made “no other so-called claims to sea regions.”
“President Ma’s interpretation of the ‘9-dash lines’ drastically reduces the area of dispute from nearly the entire South China Sea to only the Spratly Islands [Nansha Islands, 南沙群島] and their surrounding territorial seas, comprising less than 5 percent of the waters of the South China Sea,” Carpio said.
The media outlet said Carpio was enthusiastic in his admiration for Ma because of his lawyer background, like Carpio himself, and his Harvard doctoral degree with specialization in the law of the sea and his academic articles on the subject.
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