China made a protest to the United Nations body Against the Extended Continental Shelf Submitted by the Philippines earlier.
China has protested the Philippines’ claim, before the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, for an extended continental shelf in the West Philippine Sea. In a note verbal on June 18 communication, addressed to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the UN, said the Chinese government seriously requests the Commission not to consider the submission by the Philippines.
Earlier On June 14, The Philippines makes official submission to the United Nation on entitlements to an extended Continental Shelf in the West Philippines Sea, up to 350 nautical miles of its baseline in Palawan. The Philippines exercise its sovereign rights under article 76 of 1982 U.N. convention, on which a coastal state could have exclusive rights to exploit resources in its continental shelf, a vast stretch of seabed that can extend up to 350 nautical miles or 648 kilometers, including the right to authorize and regulate any kind of drilling.
According to China, The Philippines claim to a 200-nautical-mile extended continental shelf in the West Palawan Region, is without basis and seriously infringed China’s sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction in the South China Sea. China said it has indisputable sovereignty over Nanhai Zhudao and adjacent waters, and enjoys sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the relevant waters as well as the seabed and subsoil thereof.
Nanhai Zhudao refers to China’s so-called South China Sea Islands, its term for four major island chains spread out in the disputed waters, including the Spratly Islands west of Palawan, which is covered by the Philippines’ latest extended continental shelf claim.
The 2016 Arbitral Ruling, the United Nation Convention on the Law of the Sea, invalidates China’s 9 dash claims and declared its activities in the area as unlawful. The Philippines sought UN recognition of the extended continental margin, citing geological and tectonic data on the Palawan-Mindoro continent and the West Palawan Region.
The Philippines provided data that the West Palawan Region is a natural prolongation of the land territory of the Philippines, that extends beyond 200 nautical Miles from the baselines, thus demonstrating that the Philippines is entitled to a continental shelf beyond 200 miles in the West Palawan Region, according to the 30-page executive summary of its June 14 partial submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
According to Unclos, a country’s continental shelf comprises the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea throughout the natural prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin, or to a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baselines. But the outer edge of the continental shelf should not exceed 350 nautical miles from the baseline.
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