AFP, Beijing :
Beijing will close off access to part of the South China Sea for military drills, officials said Monday, after an international tribunal ruled against its sweeping claims in the waters.
An area off the east coast of China’s island province of Hainan will host military exercises from Tuesday to Thursday, China’s maritime administration said on its website, adding that entrance was “prohibited”.
The area of sea identified is some distance from the Paracel islands and even further from the Spratlys, with both chains claimed by Beijing and several other neighbouring states.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague last week ruled that there was no legal basis for Beijing’s claims to much of the sea, embodied in a “nine-dash line” that dates from 1940s maps and stretches close to other countries’ coasts.
Manila – which lodged the suit against Beijing – welcomed the decision, as China dismissed it as a “piece of waste paper”.
Despite Chinese objections, the European Union weighed in on the subject at a regional summit this weekend, with President Donald Tusk telling reporters that the grouping “will continue to speak out in support of upholding international law”, adding that it had “full confidence” in the PCA and its decisions.
China pressured countries in the ASEAN bloc of Southeast Asian nations not to issue a joint statement on the ruling, diplomats said.
Beijing held military drills in the South China Sea just days before the international arbitration court ruling, state media reported. China has rapidly built reefs in the waters into artificial islands capable of military use.
In a separate message on its website, the maritime administration said last week that four out of five lighthouses built atop islands and reefs in the sea have been activated, and a fifth would be put into use soon.
China rejected last Tuesday’s ruling by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration in a case initiated by the Philippines, and refused to take part in the arbitration. It has responded by asserting that islands in the South China Sea are “China’s inherent territory,” and says it could declare an air defense identification zone over the waters if it felt threatened.
In a further show of defiance, Beijing followed the ruling by landing two civilian aircraft on new airstrips on disputed Mischief and Subi reefs and dispatched its coast guard to block a Philippine fishing boat from reaching a contested shoal.
Dennis Blair, a former commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, told a congressional hearing on Wednesday that the United States should be willing to use military force to oppose Chinese aggression at a disputed reef off the coast of the Philippines. Blair said the objective of such an action was not to pick a fight with China at the disputed Scarborough Shoal, but to set a limit on its military coercion.
Beijing will close off access to part of the South China Sea for military drills, officials said Monday, after an international tribunal ruled against its sweeping claims in the waters.
An area off the east coast of China’s island province of Hainan will host military exercises from Tuesday to Thursday, China’s maritime administration said on its website, adding that entrance was “prohibited”.
The area of sea identified is some distance from the Paracel islands and even further from the Spratlys, with both chains claimed by Beijing and several other neighbouring states.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague last week ruled that there was no legal basis for Beijing’s claims to much of the sea, embodied in a “nine-dash line” that dates from 1940s maps and stretches close to other countries’ coasts.
Manila – which lodged the suit against Beijing – welcomed the decision, as China dismissed it as a “piece of waste paper”.
Despite Chinese objections, the European Union weighed in on the subject at a regional summit this weekend, with President Donald Tusk telling reporters that the grouping “will continue to speak out in support of upholding international law”, adding that it had “full confidence” in the PCA and its decisions.
China pressured countries in the ASEAN bloc of Southeast Asian nations not to issue a joint statement on the ruling, diplomats said.
Beijing held military drills in the South China Sea just days before the international arbitration court ruling, state media reported. China has rapidly built reefs in the waters into artificial islands capable of military use.
In a separate message on its website, the maritime administration said last week that four out of five lighthouses built atop islands and reefs in the sea have been activated, and a fifth would be put into use soon.
China rejected last Tuesday’s ruling by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration in a case initiated by the Philippines, and refused to take part in the arbitration. It has responded by asserting that islands in the South China Sea are “China’s inherent territory,” and says it could declare an air defense identification zone over the waters if it felt threatened.
In a further show of defiance, Beijing followed the ruling by landing two civilian aircraft on new airstrips on disputed Mischief and Subi reefs and dispatched its coast guard to block a Philippine fishing boat from reaching a contested shoal.
Dennis Blair, a former commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, told a congressional hearing on Wednesday that the United States should be willing to use military force to oppose Chinese aggression at a disputed reef off the coast of the Philippines. Blair said the objective of such an action was not to pick a fight with China at the disputed Scarborough Shoal, but to set a limit on its military coercion.
