The Philippines on Thursday became the latest country to denounce a new national map China rolled out this week that misrepresents Beijing’s territorial borders by claiming nearly 90% of the South China Sea as well as India’s northeastern Arunachal Pradesh state and the disputed Aksai Chin plateau.
China released its U-shaped map to almost immediate backlash on Monday, showing the Asian nation staking claim to one of the world’s most contested waterways that facilitates more than $3 trillion in trade each year.
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The Philippines said it “rejected” the map because of its inclusion of a dashed line around contested areas of the South China Sea — an area that was subject to an international tribunal ruling in 2016 that found it belonged to Manila. China rejected the ruling and has continued to claim the area as its own.
The Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs described Beijing’s new map as the country’s “latest attempt to legitimize China’s purported sovereignty and jurisdiction over Philippine features and maritime zones,” adding that it “has no basis under international law.”
Tensions between the Philippines and China over the South China Sea have escalated in recent months and even prompted talk of a ban of the Barbie movie over a controversial map scene that some claimed depicted the “nine-dash line,” which reinforces China’s territorial claim in the contested body of water. In the end, the movie was allowed to be screened in the Philippines, but it was banned in Vietnam.
On Wednesday, Malaysia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry also slammed China for claiming maritime areas near the of island Borneo, adding that it rejected China’s “unilateral claims” and said the map was “not binding.”
The rebuke came on the heels of perhaps the harshest from India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, who called China’s claim to parts of India “absurd” and part of repeated bad behavior by the Asian nation.
“China has even in the past put out maps which claim the territories which are not China’s, which belong to other countries,” he told NDTV on Tuesday. “This is an old habit of theirs.”
India said it had lodged a “strong protest” over the map through diplomatic channels.
In response, China has told India to “stay calm” and refrain from “over-interpreting” the issue.
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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping recently spoke at the BRICS summit in South Africa, where they agreed to de-escalate tensions along the disputed borders.
India will be hosting the G20 Leaders’ Summit next week, though Xi is likely to skip it, sending Premier Li Qiang in his place, Reuters reported Thursday.
