Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida has told his Philippine counterpart that Japan supports a case that the Philippines filed against China over a territorial dispute in the South China Sea, according to sources.

Kishida held talks with Albert del Rosario on Friday during his visit to Hiroshima to attend a foreign ministers’ meeting for the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Initiative, which was held Saturday.

The Philippines have a territorial dispute with China over the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal. In January of last year Manila filed a case with an international arbitration tribunal in the Hague based on the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, protesting that Beijing’s claim to territorial rights over most areas of the South China Sea lacks the evidence required by international law.

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