The United States, the United Kingdom and a dozen other Western and Asian countries reasserted their position that the country’s expansive claims in the South China Sea are illegal based on a 2016 arbitration ruling.
A joint statement issued by the 14 nations yesterday said they rejected, in their view, “destabilising” actions in the disputed waters.
The 27-nation European Union released a separate statement, backing the ruling as a “landmark decision in the peaceful settlement of disputes”.
The statements commemorated a July 12, 2016, arbitration ruling by a tribunal established in The Hague under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, saying the landmark decision is “final and legally binding”.
China reiterated yesterday that the ruling was “null and void and has no binding force” and Beijing “neither accepts nor recognises it”.
China opted out of the arbitration initiated by the Philippines in 2013 after a tense standoff in the contested waters a year earlier.
Beijing rejected the 2016 ruling and continues to defend its claims to the sea passage, a key global trade route. — AP
