Wang Yi clarifies China's position on the "South China Sea arbitration case"

On July 11, 2025, Wang Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Minister of Foreign Affairs, clarified China's position on the South China Sea arbitration case while attending the annual series of Foreign Ministers' Meetings on East Asian Cooperation in Kuala Lumpur. Wang Yi stated that the arbitration initiated unilaterally by the Philippines on the South China Sea lacked the necessary prerequisite of full prior exchange of views, violated the principle of consent of the parties involved as the basis for arbitration, and did not meet the legal requirements for initiating arbitration from the start. The actions of the Philippines contravened the provisions of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea regarding the resolution of disputes by the directly concerned parties through friendly negotiations and peaceful means, reneged on commitments made by the Philippines in bilateral agreements with China, and breached the international legal principle of "estoppel." Wang Yi said that despite various packaging of the "arbitration case," the essence of the Philippines' claims directly related to China's sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and also involved maritime delimitation. Territorial issues are not within the jurisdiction of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and China had explicitly excluded maritime delimitation in its declaration in 2006. Of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, except for the United States which has not ratified the UNCLOS, the other four countries have also made exclusions. The arbitral tribunal constituted overstepped its authority, abused the dispute settlement mechanism of UNCLOS, undermined international maritime rule of law, and used UNCLOS to violate UNCLOS. Wang Yi emphasized that the arbitral tribunal had significant flaws in fact-finding and legal application, with numerous errors, especially in categorizing the largest island in the South China Sea, the 500,000 square meter Taiping Island, as a rock and consequently ruling that there were no islands in the South China Sea capable of generating an exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. This completely contradicts the reality of the South China Sea and violates the provisions of UNCLOS. If this standard were to be applied, the world's maritime order would be rewritten. Some countries like the United States and Japan would also lose the basis for claiming maritime rights for their islands, would you also be willing to give up your claims? Wang Yi stressed that it is well known that both the initiation of the arbitral tribunal and the subsequent hype have been planned and manipulated by countries outside the region, with the aim of stirring up trouble in the South China Sea and profiting from it. More and more countries in the world have seen through the nature of this farce, and China's position precisely upholds the spirit of international rule of law and the seriousness of UNCLOS. With the joint efforts of China and ASEAN countries, the situation in the South China Sea is stable, and freedom of navigation and overflight is effectively guaranteed. China is accelerating consultations with ASEAN countries in order to reach an early agreement on the "Code of Conduct in the South China Sea" and construct a new narrative of peace, cooperation, and friendship in the South China Sea. Any attempts to stir up trouble and sow discord will fail.