13. As far as the present arbitration is concerned, without first having determined China' s territorial sovereignty over the maritime features in the South China Sea, the Arbitral Tribunal will not be in a position to determine the extent to which China may claim maritime rights in the South China Sea pursuant to the Convention, not to mention whether China' s claims exceed the extent allowed under the Convention. But the issue of territorial sovereignty falls beyond the purview of the Convention.

14. The Philippines is well aware that a tribunal established under Article 287 and Annex VII of the Convention has no jurisdiction over territorial sovereignty disputes. In an attempt to circumvent this jurisdictional hurdle and fabricate a basis for institution of arbitral proceedings, the Philippines has cunningly packaged its case in the present form. It has repeatedly professed that it does not seek from the Arbitral Tribunal a determination of territorial sovereignty over certain maritime features claimed by both countries, but rather a ruling on the compatibility of China' s maritime claims with the provisions of the Convention, so that its claims for arbitration would appear to be concerned with the interpretation or application of the Convention, not with the sovereignty over those maritime features. This contrived packaging, however, fails to conceal the very essence of the subject-matter of the arbitration, namely, the territorial sovereignty over certain maritime features in the South China Sea.

15. With regard to the second category of claims by the Philippines, China believes that the nature and maritime entitlements of certain maritime features in the South China Sea cannot be considered in isolation from the issue of sovereignty.

16. In the first place, without determining the sovereignty over a maritime feature, it is impossible to decide whether maritime claims based on that feature are consistent with the Convention.

17. The holder of the entitlements to an exclusive economic zone ( "EEZ" ) and a continental shelf under the Convention is the coastal State with sovereignty over relevant land territory. When not subject to State sovereignty, a maritime feature per se possesses no maritime rights or entitlements whatsoever. In other words, only the State having sovereignty over a maritime feature is entitled under the Convention to claim any maritime rights based on that feature. Only after a State' s sovereignty over a maritime feature has been determined and the State has made maritime claims in respect thereof, could there arise a dispute concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention, if another State questions the compatibility of those claims with the Convention or makes overlapping claims. If the sovereignty over a maritime feature is undecided, there cannot be a concrete and real dispute for arbitration as to whether or not the maritime claims of a State based on such a feature are compatible with the Convention.

18. In the present case, the Philippines denies China' s sovereignty over the maritime features in question, with a view to completely disqualifying China from making any maritime claims in respect of those features. In light of this, the Philippines is putting the cart before the horse by requesting the Arbitral Tribunal to determine, even before the matter of sovereignty is dealt with, the issue of compatibility of China' s maritime claims with the Convention. In relevant cases, no international judicial or arbitral body has ever applied the Convention to determine the maritime rights derived from a maritime feature before sovereignty over that feature is decided.