South China Sea Dispute: Philippines and Vietnam Allies in Position Papers against China

Dec 13, 2014 | Michelle Flor Cruz, International Business Times
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Vietnam and the Philippines expressed support for each other this week against claims made by China in the hotly disputed South China Sea area. The battle over a cluster of resource-rich islands and strategic maritime territories in Southeast Asia is now being fought before an arbitration tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Vietnam took its dispute with China to the legal venue when Hanoi filed a formal submission with the arbitration tribunal challenging a position paper Beijing submitted Dec. 7. In its paper, Vietnam’s foreign ministry rejected China’s legal objections to an arbitration case filed by the Philippines, accusing the country of exploiting Philippine-owned waters and thus undermining the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.