Foreign Affairs
Secretary Albert del Rosario said China's efforts were aimed at undermining a
United Nations tribunal that is due to rule early next year on a Philippine
challenge to its claims to the disputed waters.
"China is
accelerating its expansionist agenda and changing the status quo to actualize
its nine-dash line claim and to control nearly the entire South China Sea
before... the handing down of a decision of the arbitral tribunal on the
Philippine submission," del Rosario told reporters.
China insists it has
sovereign rights to nearly all of the resource-rich sea, even areas approaching
the coasts of the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations, based on an
old Chinese map with nine dashes outlining its territory.
But the nine dashes
are in some places more than 1,000 (600 miles) from the nearest major Chinese
landmass and well within the exclusive economic zones of its neighbours.
The dispute -- with
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also claiming parts of the sea -- has for
decades been a source of deep regional tension and occasional military
conflict.
Tensions have
escalated sharply in recent years as China has moved to increase its presence
and assert its authority in the waters.
Del Rosario said
those activities were continuing to pick up pace, pointing to what he described
as Chinese ships ramming Filipino fishing boats at a shoal close to the Philippine
coast in January.
"China also
made and continues to make incursions in the West Philippine Sea and undertake
massive reclamation activities in the disputed areas," he said, referring
to the Philippine-claimed waters by its local name.
Del Rosario said the
reclamation works were taking place on all seven reefs that China occupies in
the Spratly Islands, one of the biggest archipelagos in the sea between the
Philippines, southern Vietnam and Malaysia.
"The
alterations of these features are plainly intended to change the character,
status and maritime entitlements of the said features, which prejudice the
arbitration and undermine the work of the arbitral tribunal to hear and
objectively decide the case," he said in a speech to the foreign journalists'
association in Manila.
China is a signatory
to the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea, a treaty that is meant to govern
nations' maritime actions.
But China has
refused to participate in the case filed by the Philippines. The tribunal's
ruling will not be legally enforceable and China is widely expected to ignore
any verdict against it.
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