SINGAPORE: China kicked off a PR blitz Monday, sponsoring journalists around Southeast Asia to attend a South China Sea seminar it co-hosted with a university in Singapore, slamming the US for hyping up maritime disputes to sabotage its strengthening ties with Asean members.
Six days after the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague ruled that Beijing's nine-dash line denoting its territory in the South China Sea was illegal, and in breach of the Philippines' sovereign rights, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and Singapore's Nanyang Technological University co-organised a day-long seminar on the South China Sea and regional cooperation and development.
Almost half of the 25 panelists were Chinese scholars; the remaining were scholars from Cambodia, Malaysia, India, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, many of whom questioned the PCA ruling.
Some 20 journalists from Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia joined a press junket in the city-state, while another 20 or so reporters from Chinese state media flew in from Hong Kong and Southeast Asian capitals to cover the "Think Tank Seminar". This Bangkok Post reporter also travelled on the sponsored trip.
Calling the PCA a "makeshift tribunal" and its rulings a "political farce" that was funded by Manila, Chinese scholars reiterated their stance that maritime disputes must be resolved bilaterally, not multilaterally.
Fan Jishe, a senior research fellow at CASS' Institute of American Studies, told a media briefing it is a new world order now, in which a rising China "wants to contribute to the prosperity and stability of the region".
Xi: Wants to create 'sea of peace'
Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, told the seminar Beijing hoped Washington would have played a positive and neutral role in the South China Sea disputes, not seeing China as its rival.
Reiterating Beijing's stance, Mr Zheng said maritime disputes between the Philippines and China should be resolved bilaterally. He said both governments had been in close consultation to solve the issue for decades, but the administration of former president Benigno Aquino took the dispute to The Hague in 2013. "Can contemporary international law resolve this ancient problem?" Mr Zheng asked.
The Hague tribunal ruled last Tuesday there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources in areas falling within its nine-dash line, which is based on a map from the 1940s. The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim those waters.
The PCA also said China had inflicted severe environmental damage while building artificial islands atop reefs in the area.
While Chinese scholars in Singapore were repeating President Xi JIngping's commitment to turn the maritime hub into a "sea of peace, friendship and cooperation", the maritime administration of Hainan province said Monday an area southeast of the island would be closed until Thursday for military drills, but gave no details about the nature of the exercises.