China respects PHL rights over Benham rise, foreign ministry says

China respects the Philippines' rights over the continental shelf in the Benham Rise, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remark after Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that a Chinese service ship was seen surveying the 13-million hectare undersea region and biodiversity hotspot east of Luzon.

"I wish to reiterate that China fully respects the Philippines' rights over the continental shelf in the 'Benham Rise' and there is no such thing of China challenging those rights," Hua said in a press briefing.

Hua, however, invoked international law in saying that China also had freedom of navigation rights in the area.

"(The)basic principle of international law says that the EEZ and the continental shelf do not equate with territories, and a littoral state's exercise of rights over the continental shelf should not hamper such rights as freedom of navigation enjoyed by other countries under international law," Hua said.

Despite improved ties under the Duterte administration, the Philippines and China continue to have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, west of the Philippine archipelago.

The Philippines under the Aquino administration secured a favorable ruling from the arbitral tribunal based in Tha Hague, one that invalidated China's historical claims under its nine-dash-line map.

"One of the Chinese survey ship is plying the Benham Rise already last year. It was monitored for about three months doing that," Lorenzana said during a forum on threat assessment last week.

"So we have ordered the Navy if they will see this survey ship this year, start to accost them and ilayo sa eastern side of the Philippines," he added.

In 2009, the Philippines lodged a full territorial claim to Benham Rise with the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

The claim was granted in 2012, with Benham Rise granted to the Philippines as an extension of the country's continental shelf, some 350 nautical miles from the nation's shore. —NB, GMA News