By Hader Glang

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines

China has rejected a United Nations-backed tribunal's decision to hear a case brought by the Philippines on an ongoing dispute in the South China Sea, saying it will neither participate nor be bound by any judgment made.

The ruling by the five judges of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, issued three months after the Philippines legal team argued its case in the Netherlands, enabled the court to finally proceed to formal deliberations on Manila’s complaint, challenging the legality of Beijing’s assertion that its ownership of nearly the entire South China Sea is “indisputable” and “historical”.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quoted by Philstar as saying in a statement Friday that the country “will not accept any solution imposed on it or any unilateral resort to a third-party dispute settlement".