BEIJING, China—China accused the Philippines Wednesday of ignoring requests for dialogue about their maritime dispute, as tensions rise before an international tribunal’s ruling on the territorial row.
The Philippines has “unilaterally closed the door of settling the South China Sea issue with China through negotiation,” China’s foreign ministry said in a lengthy statement published by the official Xinhua news agency.
The statement came a day after the end of an annual meeting between the US and China in Beijing, at which the two countries failed to make progress on the issue.
China asserts ownership over nearly all of the sea despite competing claims by several of its Southeast Asian neighbors, and has rapidly built artificial islands suitable for military use.
Manila accuses China of effectively taking control of Scarborough Shoal, one of the contested areas, in 2012 and has brought a case against Beijing to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.
China has shunned the proceedings and said it will not recognize any ruling.
In the statement, the foreign ministry said that in 1995 Beijing and Manila agreed to settle disputes through talks and negotiation. It accused the Philippines of ignoring proposals to create a consultation mechanism on disputes at sea.
The ministry did not specify how such consultations would be different from the numerous exchanges the countries have had on the issue.
It blamed Manila for the dramatic worsening in the two countries’ relations and in the peace and stability of the South China Sea.
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam have competing claims to China, and object to its island-building.
Washington says such construction, which includes military-capable airstrips, threatens freedom of navigation. It has sent warships close to Chinese-claimed reefs, angering Beijing.
During the two-day meeting that ended Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry urged China to settle its territorial rows peacefully based on the “rule of law.”
But Beijing’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi said the US should butt out of disputes that were a long way from its shores, including the international arbitration case brought by the Philippines.
China’s stance on the case is “in line with international law,” Yang said, insisting that his country’s position “has not and will not change.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on China’s latest statement, saying the country would wait for the UN tribunal’s decision, which is expected this year.
In contrast to the multi-lateral approach favored by the Aquino administration, incoming Foreign Affairs secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said the new government would work to resume bilateral talks.
“I don’t think there is any other way of resolving this except by talking to each other,” Yasay said.
On Tuesday, an official from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told a forum at the National Defense College of the Philippines that if China declares an air defense identification zone (Adiz) over the disputed territories, planes from different countries would swarm to it to challenge it.
“The minute they do it planes would be up flying through it, American planes, Japanese planes, Australian planes, and probably European planes, including Philippine planes,” said Ernest Bower, chairman of the Southeast Asia Program at the center.
Bower made the assessment in answer to a query raised by former nationals security adviser Roilo Golez on how the US and its allies would respond to an Adiz declared by China.