My Take | It’s the US stirring the pot in South China Sea
- Manila and Beijing want to normalise relations, but Washington is standing in the way
This month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo castigated China for not respecting a ruling by an international tribunal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which found in favour of the Philippines over claims in the South China Sea in 2016.
And, in the past year, Washington has claimed China has breached the Sino-British Joint Declaration over Hong Kong and is threatening punishment.
Let us ignore here Washington’s questionable interpretations of the UNCLOS ruling and the Joint Declaration. Don’t people find it bizarre that the US thinks it can sit in judgment over other countries’ disputes? It seems a rather transparent attempt to hijack those disputes to further Pompeo’s own not-so-hidden agenda.
Why is Pompeo citing the UNCLOS? The US has no standing with the convention because it has never ratified it, unlike China and the Philippines. Anyway, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has just said he will not confront Beijing over the ruling. The “plaintiff” doesn’t want to pursue the case, so why is the US making so much noise?
03:09
Duterte tells Philippines he asked China for coronavirus vaccine, diplomacy in maritime dispute
In his annual State of the Nation Address, Duterte said diplomacy was the best approach because the alternative was to go to war and he could not afford it.