(Archive: Originally published in The ASEAN Youth Journal, January 2022)
The United States has concluded in a 47-page report that China's claims over the South China Sea are unlawful.
The US State Department published on 12 Jan its Limits in the Seas report No. 150, which points out that China's claim of "historic rights" is not legally justified and cannot override the claims of other littoral states.
The report also rehashed the Permanent Court of Arbitration's 2016 ruling, which explained that the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) supersedes Beijing's historic rights argument.
In 2016, the arbitration panel in The Hague ruled that China's nine-dash line, which covers the entire South China Sea, is "incompatible with the Convention" and is "superseded… by the limits of the maritime zones provided for by the Convention," adding that being part of the Convention requires states to "bring incompatible claims into alignment with its provisions." This means that China, as a signatory to UNCLOS, should abide by its rules.
China had refused to participate in the arbitration and has ignored the ruling since, meanwhile continuing its expansionist and aggressive military activities in the South China Sea.
For its historic rights argument, China in its 2014 position paper claimed that "China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands" and "Chinese activities in the South China Sea date back to over 2,000 years ago." The paper also cited a 1948 map inscribed with an 11-dash line to further support China's sovereignty claim.
In a statement, the State Department called on the People's Republic of China to "conform its maritime claims to international law (...), to comply with the decision of the arbitral tribunal in its award of July 12, 2016 (...) and to cease its unlawful and coercive activities in the South China Sea."
Beijing's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin, in response to the report, said "the United States refuses to sign the convention but portrays itself as a judge and wantonly distorts the treaty."
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