China issued strong criticism on Thursday after Belgium and Chile recently decided to merge their candidacies for the seat of the proposed secretariat of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, known as the BBNJ Agreement.

The Belgium-Chile bid attempts to hijack other signatories and "constitutes disrespect to the authority of the Conference of the Parties", Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular news conference in Beijing.

Earlier this year, the coastal city of Xiamen in Southeast China's Fujian province proposed to host the secretariat. Xiamen had been competing with Brussels in Belgium and Valparaiso in Chile to host the secretariat, with a final decision expected to be made at the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the BBNJ Agreement in January.

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However, on Nov 6, Belgium and Chile issued a statement about their decision to merge their candidacies.

According to the statement, the joint candidature "provides for the secretariat being based in the city of Valparaiso, Chile" and "the secretariat will manage the Clearing-House Mechanism, of which the physical and technical infrastructure will be installed in and operating from Brussels".

A clearing-house mechanism, or CHM, is an information-sharing platform used by international environmental treaties to help countries exchange scientific, technical and legal knowledge.

In response, Mao, the spokeswoman, noted that Belgium and Chile announced their joint bid "without consulting the vast majority of signatory parties".

According to the BBNJ Agreement, issues such as the seat of the secretariat and the CHM shall all be decided by the Conference of the Parties, Mao said.

"Belgium and Chile made a backroom deal over issues that require collective decision-making, violating the agreement and showing disrespect to the authority of the Conference of the Parties," she said.

The bid does not comply with procedural justice, as the location of the secretariat and the establishment of the CHM are two different issues that should be decided separately by the Conference of the Parties, Mao noted.

"The Belgium-Chile proposal bundles them together to impose a package for approval, violating procedural rules and amounting to a 'hijack' of the signatory parties," she said.

Managing the CHM is a core responsibility of the BBNJ Secretariat, and splitting the locations of the secretariat and the mechanism would "raise the operation costs, lower management efficiency and increase the financial burden on all parties", Mao said.

For a long time, most major international institutions had been based in Europe, with none in Asia, and "developing countries have called for correcting this historical imbalance and making global institutions fairer and more equitable", Mao noted.

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She added that it would "further widen the digital divide for developing countries" if the CHM is located in Brussels, an inland city which hosts the headquarters of NATO and the European Union, and that this would undermine the common interests of the Global South.

The spokeswoman said that the Belgium-Chile proposal imposes politicization and bloc-based divides upon the entire bidding process.

China calls on the international community to "choose a location that is most conducive to the efficient operation of the secretariat and the effective implementation of the Agreement", she said.

Contact the writers at zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn