Beijing has ‘a lot of legal weapons’ to challenge Manila’s claims in South China Sea, international law expert says
- China could assert fishing rights, demand transit passages and contest baselines if disputes with Philippines escalate, according to leading scholar
- Tensions between the neighbours have continued to stew over contested reefs and closer US-Philippine defence ties
“[China has] a lot of legal weapons and has not used them yet,” said Kuenchen Fu, a specially appointed research fellow with the Belt and Road Institute at Xiamen University in southeast China. He previously served as dean of the university’s South China Sea Institute – the first research organisation at a university in mainland China to focus on the region.
“Within the archipelagic waters of the Philippines, not only in the Sulu Sea but in many other areas, Chinese fishermen have the right to fish,” said Fu, who has served as an arbitrator in various arbitration tribunals in mainland China, Taiwan and Russia.
Beijing could also challenge the Philippines’ claim to the Kalayaan group of islands, over which Manila began asserting its sovereignty in the 1970s, said the international law expert.