China plans South China Sea military drills as court rules

As the arbitration court at the Hague prepares to hand down its ruling over the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China over the South China Sea, China has announced that it will be holding exercises along the disputed waters.

China has long-standing disputes over maritime territory in the South China Sea with other regional states such as Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

China said it will start the drills around the disputed Paracel Islands on July 5 and will continue them until July 11.

It comes ahead of an arbitration court ruling on China’s sweeping claims to the sea – with the country widely expected to ignore the verdict.

“Confrontation will never help to resolve the South China Sea issue”, he said.

“Manila must put aside the result of the arbitration in a substantive approach”, one of the sources quoted by China Daily said.

The Philippines is making the case that Beijing’s claim to the area within the “nine-dash line” (see below) violates the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Tensions in the South China Sea have alarmed the United States which has key defense treaties with many allies in the region, and in a show of strength recently dispatched warships near some of the Chinese claimed reefs.

“Washington has deployed two carrier battle groups around the South China Sea, and it wants to send a signal by flexing its muscles: As the biggest powerhouse in the region, it awaits China’s obedience”, it said.

The G7 and European Union groupings have stated that ruling must be binding, despite China’s objections, while Vietnam gave a submission to the court supporting its jurisdiction.

China’s illegal construction on Vietnam’s Fiery Cross Reef in the Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago.

China has insisted that the Hague court lacks jurisdiction over the case as it involves sovereignty and maritime delimitation – issues which Beijing says are not subject to third-party arbitration.

Meanwhile, the sources referred to major sovereignty-related incidents since 2010, including the Diaoyu Islands crisis prompted by Japan in 2012 and the Huangyan Island standoff brought by the Philippines earlier in the same year.

According to a Philippine official, the Chinese ambassador has worked hard to fix damaged relations with Manila and told Filipino diplomats Beijing would extend an invitation to the new president to visit China within the next six months.