Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 31
The envoys of Australia and China today clashed on Twitter over sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.
It began with China's Ambassador to India Sun Weidong tweeting that Australian High Commissioner to India Barry O'Farrell was disregarding facts in his comments on South China Sea and that China's claims were based on United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
'Hope beijing will follow rules'
As China invokes United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to "substantiate its claims", Australian envoy Barry O'Farrell retorts that he hopes Beijing will follow the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award which is final and binding under the international law
O'Farrell thanked Weidong for his comments and hoped that if the UNCLOS was the benchmark for settling disputes, China would follow the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award which was final and binding under the international law. He also wanted China to generally refrain from actions that unilaterally altered the status quo.
The South China Sea, however, may not have been the only issue that had troubled the Chinese envoy. On Thursday, when Weidong was explaining his country's position on the Galwan valley clashes at a conference, O'Farrell met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and released a statement in which he also dwelt on the LAC tension.
The Chinese envoy avoided commenting on O'Farrell's part of the statement that said Australia opposed any attempt to unilaterally alter the status quo at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), as that would increase tension and the risk of instability.
Weidong trained his fire on the South China Sea part of the statement by the Australian High Commissioner since Canberra has recently spoken on the issue twice.
On July 23, Australia lodged a note with the UN Secretary General, refuting China's maritime claims in the South China Sea.
More recently, the joint statement released after the Australia-US two plus two (defence and foreign ministers of both countries) used identical words for the 2016 decision of the Arbitral Tribunal — "it is final and binding on both parties".
The joint statement had also said the Indo-Pacific was the focus of the US-Australia Alliance and that the US and Australia were working side by side, including with ASEAN, India, Japan, Korea and Five Eyes partners to strengthen alliances and partnerships.
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