International News

BEIJING, (APP/AFP) – Beijing “has the right” to declare
an air defence identification zone over the South China Sea, it said Wednesday as it stepped up denunciations of an international tribunal that ruled against its expansive claims in the strategic waters.
Whether Beijing set up such a zone — which would require civilian
aircraft to identify themselves to military controllers — depended on “the level of threat we receive”, said vice foreign minister Liu Zhenmin.
“Do not turn the South China Sea into a cradle of war,” he told
reporters, insisting: “China’s aim is to turn the South China Sea into a sea of piece, friendship and cooperation”.
China reasserted its claims to the area, which extend almost to the
coasts of neighbouring states, after the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) tribunal in The Hague backed the Philippines’ case that there was no legal basis for them.
Liu described the ruling as “a piece of waste paper” at a press
conference, alleging the tribunal had been “manipulated”.
The five judges who ruled in the case “made money from the
Philippines”, Liu said, adding “and maybe other people gave them money too”.
He stressed that four of the judges were from EU countries, with the
Ghanaian chairman a longtime resident of Europe.
“Are these kind of judges representative?” he asked rhetorically. “Do
they understand Asian culture?”
A Japanese former president of the International Tribunal on the Law
of the Sea, Shunji Yanai, had “manipulated the entire proceedings” from behind the scenes, he alleged.
Yanai, a former Japanese ambassador to South Korea and the US,
stepped down from his role in 2014.