China plans to set up an “international maritime judicial centre” to help protect the country’s sovereignty and rights at sea, its top judge said on Sunday. “(We) must improve the work of maritime courts and build an international maritime judicial centre.“(We) must resolutely safeguard China’s national sovereignty, maritime rights and other core interests,” he said.Giving a work report at the annual meeting of China’s largely rubber-stamp Parliament, chief justice Zhou Qiang said courts across China were working to implement the national strategy of building China into a “maritime power”.
China’s increasingly assertive claims in the South China Sea, along with its rapidly modernising Navy, have rattled nerves around the region. The case clearly showed China’s jurisdiction over the region, he said. China has the largest number of maritime courts globally, he added.Mr Zhou said about 16,000 maritime cases were heard by Chinese courts in 2015, the most in the world. It is not clear when the judicial centre may start working, where it would be located or what kinds of cases it would accept. The Philippines has lodged a case with an arbitration court in The Hague about its dispute with China in the Automobile Tubing Suppliers South China Sea, angering China which has pledged not to participate.China disputes a group of uninhabited islets with Japan in the East China Sea, and also claims most of the South China Sea.
