34 nations back 2016 arbitral ruling but fall short of urging parties to comply —AMTI

Five years after the South China Sea arbitration case, think tank Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) said some countries shifted their stance on the case filed by the Philippines against China over its massive maritime claims.

In AMTI's updated arbitration support tracker, eight countries publicly backed the ruling, which invalidated China's sweeping claims over the South China Sea, while eight other nations opposed the ruling.

"Everyone else remains exactly where they were a month after the ruling was issued. And for most countries, that means studiously silent," AMTI added.

AMTI said two countries, Russia and Syria, moved from neutral statements to rejecting the ruling, which declared Manila's victory against China.

Here are the following countries that rejected the arbitration case:

• China
• Montenegro
• Pakistan
• Russia
• Sudan
• Syria
• Taiwan
• Vanuatu
   

"Only two countries, Germany and the United Kingdom, evolved from positively acknowledging the ruling to explicitly calling for it to be respected," said AMTI.

Aside from these two nations, the Philippines, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States urged other countries to respect and support the arbitration decision.

Thirty-four countries, meanwhile, issued "generally positive statements" of the verdict but "stopped short" of encouraging parties to comply with it, AMTI said.

Here is the list of countries that "positively acknowledged the ruling:"

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czechia
• Denmark
• Estonia

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• Finland
• France
• Greece
• Hungary
• India
• Indonesia
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malaysia
• Malta
• Myanmar
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Singapore
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sweden
• Vietnam

Before the ruling came out, AMTI said 31 countries publicly confirmed support to China's position to ignore the arbitration case while 41 other nations expressed support to the arbitral award, which they affirmed was "legally binding."

To date, China still chooses to ignore the ruling as it stands by its historical basis that most of its maritime claims are within the nine-dash line. This historical claim was challenged by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Even after the Philippines' victory in the case, authorities still found Chinese vessels invading the country's territorial waters. —LDF, GMA News