Those words were spoken by Liu Zhenmin, then the vice foreign minister for the People’s Republic of China, at a July 2016 press conference in Beijing.
- Jonathan G. Odom
- LawFare
One day prior to his remarks, a tribunal constituted under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) had issued a comprehensive, 501-page ruling in the South China Sea arbitration case between the Republic of the Philippines and China.
As a state party to UNCLOS, the Philippines had initiated the…