China claims right to declare air defence zone

Beijing

CHINA warned it "has the right" to declare an air defence identification zone over the South China Sea as it stepped up denunciations of an international tribunal that ruled against its expansive claims in the strategic waters.

Whether Beijing set up such a zone - which would require civilian aircraft to identify themselves to military controllers - depended on "the level of threat we receive", said Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin on Wednesday.

"Do not turn the South China Sea into a cradle of war," he told reporters, insisting: "China's aim is to turn the South China Sea into a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation."

US officials have previously said they feared China may respond to the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) tribunal in The Hague by declaring an air defence identification zone in the South China Sea, as it did in the East China Sea in 2013, or by …