Biden Reaffirms Rejection Of China Claims In South China Sea

The Biden administration on Sunday (Monday, July 12, 2021, in Manila) upheld a Trump-era rejection of nearly all of China's significant maritime claims in the South China Sea (SCS) and warned China that any attack on the Philippines in the flashpoint region would draw a US response under a mutual defense treaty, Matthew Lee reported for the Associated Press (AP).

The stern message from Secretary of State Antony Blinken came on the fifth anniversary of an international tribunal’s ruling in favor of the Philippines, against China’s maritime claims around the Spratly Islands and neighboring reefs and shoals.

China rejects the ruling despite being a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that struck down historical claims on maritime features, preferring instead to base such claims on proximity and shared geological characteristics.

China is thousands of kilometers away from the submerged maritime features it has been claiming and could not produce the coordinates of its “9-dash line” that was sketched by Kuomintang oceanographers in 1947.

Latin American scholars also claimed China has no historical records to prove sovereignty over the maritime features. The sovereignty of nation-states over specific territories was established only in 1648 by the Treaty of Westphalia.

Ahead of the fourth anniversary of the ruling last year, the Trump administration came out in favor of the ruling and regarded as illegitimate virtually all Chinese maritime claims in the SCS outside its internationally recognized waters. Sunday’s statement reaffirms that position, which had been laid out by Trump's secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

“Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the SCS," Blinken said, using language similar to Pompeo's. He accused China of continuing "to coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway.”

He added: “The US reaffirms its July 13, 2020 policy regarding maritime claims in the SCS,” he said, referring to Pompeo's original statement. “We also reaffirm that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the SCS would invoke US mutual defense commitments.”

Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty obligates both countries to come to each other's aid in case of an attack. Prior to Pompeo's statement, US policy had been to insist that maritime disputes between China and its smaller neighbors be resolved peacefully through UN-backed arbitration.

The shift did not apply to disputes over land features that are above sea level, which are considered to be “territorial” in nature.

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