The Chinese view on the Philippine arbitration on the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea)

Harry Roque*

Participants to the recently concluded 4th biennial Conference of the Asian Society of International Law in New Delhi, India last November 15, 2017 heard for the first time the Chinese position on the Philippine arbitral claim on the West Philippines Sea dispute.

In the said conference, I delivered a paper entitled “What next after the Chinese Snub? Examining the UNCLOS dispute settlement procedure: Philippines vs. China”. My paper argued that the issues that the Philippines brought to the arbitral claims, to wit, the validity of China’s nine-dash lines, whether certain low-tide elevations where China has built installations pertain to the Philippines as part of its continental shelf; and whether the waters surrounding the territorial sea of Panatag form part of the Philippines EEZ are issues of interpretation of specific provisions of the UNCLOS and hence, were within the compulsory and binding dispute settlement procedure of the UNCLOS.

Further, while I acknowledged that China’s reservations on maritime delimitation and law enforcement activities in the exercise of sovereign rights were more challenging obstacles to hurdle, they were not insurmountable because the language of the Philippine claim does not call for a ruling involving any of the reservations made by China.

My paper assumed that the Tribunal’s jurisdiction over China as party to the proceedings was well settled. This is because China, as a party to the UNCLOS, has accepted the dispute settlement procedure of the Convention, together with all the provisions of the Convention which were all adopted on the basis of consensus.

The Chinese Judge to the International Court of Justice, Judge Xue Hanqin, was present in the conference. Judge Xue is the highest woman official in China prior to her election to the Court. Previously, she served as chief legal adviser and head of the treaties office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Ambassador to the Netherlands and Asean. She is said to have been groomed to be part of the Central Bureau of China’s People’s Party had she not opted to join the ICJ. While Judge Xue and I have been good friends, having served together in the Executive Council of the Asian Society of International Law for the past 6 years, I knew it would still be awkward to have her listening to my presentation.

But the most unusual thing happened after my 25-minute presentation. Judge Xue, explaining that since she was the only Chinese present in the conference because the Chinese delegates were denied visas by Indian authorities, took the floor for the next 20 minutes and for the first time expounded extensively on the Chinese position on the Philippine arbitral claim. This was unusual because magistrates, be it from domestic or international courts, will normally refuse to comment on an actual dispute, which could come to their court for adjudication. This certainly applies to the West Philippines Sea dispute.

Judge Xue raised four crucial points. Her first was that the Philippine claim involved territorial claims which is outside the purview of UNCLOS. She added though that “since the end of World War II, the international community, has acknowledged the existence of China’s nine-dash lines with no country ever questioning it until oil resources were discovered in the area.” Without expounding on the nature of the lines, she claimed that it is “not considered as a boundary line” and they “have not affected international navigation in the area.” She claimed that there was “”no international law applied in this regard to the region.”

Second, Judge Xue argued that 40 countries, including China, made declarations to the dispute settlement procedure of the UNCLOS. According to her, this means “these 40 states have not accepted the dispute settlement of the Convention as being compulsory”. She said that “when countries joined UNCLOS I, they are not deemed to have given up all their previous territorial claims.”

Third, she said that as China’s first Ambassador to Asean, she knows that the countries of Asean and China have agreed to a code of conduct relating to the South China Sea. Under this code, disputes must be resolved through negotiations and not through arbitration. She claimed that this obligation was “a substantive obligation binding on all claimant state.”

Fourth, Judge Xue explained that China opted out of the arbitration because “no country can fail to see the design” of the Philippine claim which she described as having “mixed up jurisdiction with the merits.”

She opined that the Philippines’ resort to arbitration complicated what she described as an “impressive process between Asean and China”. What the Philippine did “was to begin with the “complicated part of the South China Sea dispute” rather then with easier ones such as “disaster management.” This later pronouncement all but confirmed that the very limited humanitarian assistance extended to the Philippines by China in the aftermath of Yolanda was because of the Philippine resort to arbitration.

Judge Xue ended her intervention by exhorting the Philippines to consider joint use of the disputed waters, a matter that according to her has been successfully resorted to by China and Vietnam.

While Judge Xue’s intervention made our panel, without a doubt, the most memorable exchange in the conference, her declarations provided us with many answers that China has refused to give us.

We have Judge Xue to thank for this.

* Prof. H. Harry L. Roque, Jr. is an Associate Professor at the UP College of Law. This article originally appeared on his personal blog at http://harryroque.com/2013/11/21/the-chinese-view-on-the-philippine-arbitration-on-the-west-philippine-sea

A related discussion on Judge Xue’s declarations by Prof. Julian Ku: China’s ICJ Judge Xue Hanqin Publicly Defends China’s Non-Participation in UNCLOS Arbitration