Carpio: Tougher US stance on South China Sea dispute sends 'very strong' message to China

Retired Supreme Court senior associate justice Antonio Carpio on Tuesday said the new statement from the United States sends a "very strong" message to China that it is supporting Southeast Asian coastal states in disputes in the South China Sea.

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has said "the world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire" and expressed solidarity with its allies Southeast Asia. He said Beijing's claims to most of the South China Sea are "completely unlawful."

"This sends a very strong message to China that the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei have the backing of the US in protecting their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) in the South China Sea," Carpio said at a virtual conference.

The EEZ is 200 nautical miles beyond a coastal state's territorial sea. The Philippine constitution says the state shall reserve the use and enjoyment of the EEZ's marine wealth exclusively to Filipino citizens.

Carpio added that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea guarantees that all states have the freedom of navigation and overflight in the EEZs and the high seas of the world, which means they can sail or fly over these areas without getting the consent of any coastal state.

By conducting freedom of navigation and overflight exercises in the EEZs and high seas of the South China Sea, the world's naval powers are enforcing the 2016 arbitral ruling that invalidated China's massive claims to the resource-rich shipping route, the former justice said.

Beijing continues to reject the arbitral award four years after it was handed down.

These "peaceful and lawful"  freedom of navigation and overflight operations are the "most robust and most powerful enforcement" of the arbitral ruling, Carpio said.

Because of this, Carpio said Southeast Asian coastal states that are asserting their rights to their EEZs have a "natural strategic partnership" with the US and other naval powers outside the region and should therefore welcome their freedom of navigation and overflight operations.

"If China persists in its aggressive encroachment of the EEZs of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) coastal states, then ASEAN coastal states can respond by joining the outside naval powers in their freedom of navigation and overflight operations in the exclusive economic zones and high seas of the South China Sea," he said.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who assumed the presidency shortly before the decision was promulgated, had set the ruling aside in pursuit of friendlier ties with China, but vowed to raise it at a proper time.—AOL, GMA News