The U.S. backed the Philippines in rejecting China’s plan to create a national nature reserve at Scarborough Shoal in the disputed sea that separates the two nations, calling it "destabilizing.”
The move by the government in Beijing is "yet another coercive attempt to advance sweeping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea at the expense of its neighbors,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Friday. China’s actions in the shoal "continue to undermine regional stability,” he added.
The Philippine government filed a diplomatic protest against China on Friday, foreign affairs department spokesperson Angelica Escalona said Saturday. It is "a strong, unequivocal and formal articulation of Philippine objections to the Chinese action,” she said in a mobile-phone message to reporters.
The U.S. and the Philippines are responding to a move by China’s Cabinet, the State Council. It approved a proposal by the Ministry of Natural Resources to build a national nature reserve on Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing calls Huangyan Island, according to an official notice published Wednesday. The shoal is also claimed by the Philippines.
China has been asserting its claims in the resource-rich waters of the South China Sea despite a 2016 ruling by an international tribunal that invalidated them. Rubio said the U.S. calls on China to respect the decision that China had unlawfully stopped Filipino fishermen from Scarborough Reef.
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