Foreign Ministry challenges US diplomat on absurd remarks

A spokeswoman from China's Foreign Ministry said the United States is not qualified to make carping comments on China as it has not signed on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

After the US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the House of Representatives on Thursday that China can't have it both ways (being a party to the convention but rejecting its provisions), China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying held a press conference Friday in Beijing saying that the US has not yet signed on the convention.

Instead, Washington has introduced its so-called "Freedom of Navigation Program" in 1979 ahead of the birth of the convention in 1982, Hua noted.

"This is purely a logic of hegemony to formulate and lead the US-fashion maritime order outside the framework of the convention," Hua said.

Hua also noted that it is a secret that is known to all, "the US subscribes to the international law when it is favorable for them, and ignore the law when it is not favorable."

More than 30 countries besides China have filed declarations in accordance with the Convention to exclude disputes concerning maritime delimitation from compulsory arbitration and other compulsory dispute settlement procedures.

"China's rejection to the arbitration and refusal to be part of it is to ensure the solemnity of the international laws, including the convention, and to oppose abusing them," Hua said.

Blinken was challenging China's lasting rejection to arbitration by a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which was established in 2014 at Manila's unilateral request against China.