On Monday, China released a “standard map”, which showed Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as parts of Chinese territory. The distorted map also incorporated China’s claims over Taiwan and a large part of the South China Sea.
The Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam on Thursday joined India to reject the latest “standard map” released by China that shows other countries’ territories as its own.
In a strongly worded statement, the Philippine government said, “This latest attempt to legitimise China’s purported sovereignty and jurisdiction over Philippine features and maritime zones has no basis under international law, particularly the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).”
Notably, the map includes the nine-dash line, now a 10-dash line, that supposedly shows China’s boundaries in the South China Sea.
“(The 2016 Arbitral Award) categorically stated that ‘maritime areas of the South China Sea encompassed by the relevant part of the ‘nine-dash line’ are contrary to the Convention and without lawful effect to the extent that they exceed the geographic and substantive limits of China’s maritime entitlements under the Convention,” Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Ma. Teresita Daza was quoted as saying by the official Philippine News Agency.
“The Philippines, therefore, calls on China to act responsibly and abide by its obligations under UNCLOS and the final and binding 2016 Arbitral Award,” she further stated.
Meanwhile, Malaysia, whose maritime areas have been covered in the Chinese map, said it will send a “protest note” to China over the latter’s claims on the South China Sea.