Philippines tells China to mind its own business over maritime drills
CNN
China has no business telling the Philippines what it can or cannot do within its waters, Manila's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday, rejecting Beijing's opposition to its ongoing coast guard exercises.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, where about $3 trillion worth of ship-borne trade passes each year. In 2016, an arbitration tribunal in The Hague ruled that claim, which Beijing bases on its old maps, was inconsistent with international law. Philippines Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters that Beijing had "no authority or legal basis to prevent us from conducting these exercises" in the South China Sea because "their claims ... have no basis".
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