BEIJING: China “does not accept and does not recognise” the ruling by a UN-backed tribunal on its dispute with the Philippines over the South China Sea, the official Xinhua news agency said Tuesday.
The comments, in a brief dispatch that did not identify a source, follow a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague that China has no historic rights to its claimed “nine-dash line.”
Earlier, an international tribunal ruled that China has no legal basis to claim "historic rights" to islands in the South China Sea, in a bitter dispute that risks stoking further tensions in Southeast Asia.
"The Tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights within the sea areas falling within the 'nine-dash line'," the tribunal said in a statement. --AFP