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Malaysian Top Envoy: China's 'Nine-Dash Line' Claim 'Ridiculous'

posted by janrinok on Sunday December 22 2019, @05:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the applying-the-rules-fairly dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Foreign Minister Saifuddin says Malaysia's decision to take South China Sea claim to UN is its 'sovereign right'. Malaysian Minister of Foreign Affairs Saifuddin Abdullah said late on Friday that Kuala Lumpur has the "sovereign right to claim whatever that is there that is within our waters".

"For China to claim that the whole of South China Sea belongs to China, I think that is ridiculous," Saifuddin said in response to an Al Jazeera question about Malaysia's decision last week to take its case to the United Nations.

"It is a claim that we have made, and we will defend our claim. But of course, having said that, anyone can challenge and dispute, which is not something unusual."

The move has angered China, which claims "historic rights" over all of South China Sea. It has also blamed the United States for raising tensions in the area.

In response, the US Navy's Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral John Aquilino accused China of "bullying" its Southeast Asian neighbours.

Malaysia and China are both signatories of the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which codifies the rights and responsibilities of independent states' use of the oceans.

Under the UNCLOS, coastal states like Malaysia are entitled to an EEZ. Beyond that is considered the high seas, common to all nations. UNCLOS also defines rules in case of overlapping EEZs.

It was on this basis that the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague rejected in 2016 China's claims to the large swaths of water, which sees an estimated $3 trillion of trade pass each year.

China, however, rejects the ruling in The Hague, and since then has expanded its presence in the region, building artificial islands with runways and installing advanced missile system.

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 22 2019, @03:45PM (3 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 22 2019, @03:45PM (#935191) Homepage Journal

    At a guess, about a billion Muslims care, to varying degrees, depending on whether they are Shia, or Sunni, or one of the splinter groups. Aside from those, you're probably right.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @05:20PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @05:20PM (#935212)

    There are about 300 million splinter groups: not just Shia and Sunni, but also Sufi, Omarites, 7th Imanites, 11th Imanites, Fatimites, Uighurs, Wahabi, Wasabi, Jihadi, etc. Whenever three or more Muslims get together they seem to form a new sect and then start a fight with the other sects.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @05:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @05:52PM (#935228)

      So, they are like Baptists in the USA?

      "Splitters!" with apologies to Monty Python's 'Life of Brian'...

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 22 2019, @06:59PM

    by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Sunday December 22 2019, @06:59PM (#935240) Journal

    Maybe not. Check this out:

    Xinjiang re-education camps [wikipedia.org]

    In 2019, the United Nations ambassadors from 22 nations, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom signed a letter condemning China's mass detention of the Uyghurs and other minority groups, urging the Chinese government to close the camps. Conversely, a joint statement was alleged to be signed by 37 states that voiced approval of China's counter-terrorism program in Xinjiang, including Algeria, the DR Congo, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea, Egypt, Nigeria, the Philippines and Sudan, but the letter has not been shown to the public. The letter supporting China commended what it called China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights.

    [...] In July 2019, 37 countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, Sudan, Angola, Algeria, Nigeria, DR Congo, North Korea, Serbia, Russia, Venezuela, Philippines, Myanmar, Pakistan and Syria signed a joint letter to the UNHRC praising China's "remarkable achievements in Xinjiang.", The Global Times, a Chinese state-run tabloid, later said that 50 countries including Iran, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Djibouti and Palestine signed the letter.

    Reactions by other countries [wikipedia.org]

    The supporters are listed as "alleged" due to the status of the letter. But you can see that the list includes Algeria, Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and UAE. Only Qatar has "withdrawn" support and the opposition seems to be mostly European countries.

    The mighty Chinese Yuan continues to reach far.

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