Taiwan’s animosity towards the Philippines is lamentable

 

At this time when the country is having serious territorial dispute with China, another bickering with another Chinese nation, Taiwan, is the last thing that we would like to have.

 Unfortunately, the incident that resulted to Taiwan’s utter show of animosity towards the Philippines is not a minor one as it cost the life of one of their fishermen.

 To them the Manila hostage crisis of 2010, where eight Taiwanese hostages were killed, has barely healed the wounds of the victim’s families, when another fatal shooting has been committed by a Filipino on their citizen.

 According to reports, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) had warned first the Taiwanese fishing vessel that they were in the waters of the country’s exclusive economic zone, but the vessel did not leave and instead tried to ram the PCG boat.

 In self-defense, the coast guards opened fire on the fishing boat hitting Hung Shih-cheng, 65, who died from a bullet wound in the neck.

 The underlying problem here is that the location the fishing vessel was found in is the same exclusive economic zone that, like China, Taiwan is also trying to claim as theirs.

 The highly regrettable incident is just the latest proof that the South China Sea is an emerging flashpoint over competing claims, in part, by nations like the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, and claiming it in whole is China and its estranged neighbor, Taiwan.

 Because of this, Taiwan has announced the withdrawal of its representative in Manila and said it had stopped accepting applications for Filipino workers, as a retaliatory step for the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman.

 But what does not augur well with our country’s relationship with Taiwan is that the office of President Ma Ying-jeou, has rejected President Benigno Aquino’s apology, branding it as inadequate.

 They didn’t want PNoy calling the shooting as “unfortunate” and “unintentional”, as if it is in our character to be trigger happy and assassins.

 What is exacerbating the worrisome situation is the threat that Taiwan’s Navy and Coast Guard would stage an exercise as a show of strength in disputed waters near where the upsetting incident occurred.

 Shall we be seeing then Taiwan’s F-16 fighters, Kidd-class destroyers and other warships, if only to show how militarily muscled they are for our own good?

 We just hope this lamentable problem can be settled diplomatically before it worsens and pray similar incidents will not happen again.

Japan-China island dispute heats up

 

Uotsuri Island, one of disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea

While the Philippines is just being contented in filing a notification and statement of claim with the United Nations over some part of the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea), which is being claimed in whole by China, and hoping also that the 22^nd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit currently being held in Brunei will be able to convince China to adhere to a code of conduct that would govern any territorial and sovereignty conflict in the international waterways in accordance with international law “without resorting to the threat or use of force,’’ the similarly Japan-China island dispute, however, is firing up.

This after Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to “expel by force” any Chinese landing on the islands in the East China Sea, and promised “decisive action”.

It will be noted that eight Chinese maritime surveillance ships have been observed by the Japan Coast Guard to have entered the 12-nautical-mile zone off the islands, which China calls Diaoyu and Japan calls the Senkaku.

The flotilla is said to be the biggest to sail into the disputed waters in a single day since Tokyo nationalized part of the island chain in September.

Whether this was done purposely by the Chinese in protest to a visit made by over a hundred Japanese lawmakers and cabinet members to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine in central Tokyo, which is seen as a potent symbol of Japan’s imperialist past by Japan’s neighbors, the fact is that the sight of the flotilla in its territorial waters did not sit well with the government.

“It is extremely deplorable and unacceptable that Chinese government ships are repeatedly entering Japanese territorial waters,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.

This was even made clear by PM Abe in the parliament when he was questioned by lawmakers, saying: “We would never allow a landing. It would be natural for us to expel by force if (the Chinese) were to make a landing.”

If only President Benigno Aquino can promise the same thing to Congress and the Filipino people!

Alas, for us long as we remain poor and continue to remain oblivious to the importance of electing educationally-qualified, selfless, competent and conviction leaders to govern and lift this country up and move us forward progressively, then we will forever be at the mercy of aggressors and dependent upon the powers that be.

National Bookstore shows nationalism

 

New China-made educational globe an affront to Philippine sovereignty.

The Philippine’s largest bookstore should be lauded for living up to its name by showing nationalism in withdrawing Chinese-made globes showing Beijing’s claims to most of the South China Sea from its shelves.

This was announced by Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez when he issued a statement, saying, “The National Bookstore has withdrawn all the educational globes, which reflect China’s nine-dash line encompassing the South China Sea, from its stores.”

“It has taken a patriotic position to proactively support the Philippine government in advancing Philippine foreign policy objectives,” he added.

Unfortunately, when the globes were displayed, the bookstore management was not aware of the changes made, which could only be construed as a willful dissemination of ‘misinformation’ and blatant disregard for the sensibilities of Filipinos by China.

It will be remembered that China’s “nine-dash line” outlines its claims to virtually all of the South China Sea, even waters close to the Philippine shores and that of its neighbors in the region.

The Philippine government last month took China to an arbitration panel under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) — a 1982 treaty signed by both countries — to demand that it declare China’s claims invalid.

Phl brings South China Sea dispute to UN

 

South Shina Seas territorial claims

Not foreseeing the desirable solution the country wants in its territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario finally handed a diplomatic note to Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Ma Keqing, notifying Beijing of the country’s decision to have the contentious issue decided by the tribunal of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

“On numerous occasions, dating back to 1995, the Philippines has been exchanging views with China to peacefully settle these disputes. To this day, a solution is still elusive. We hope that the arbitral proceedings shall bring this dispute to a durable solution.” Del Rosario lamented.

It has been a long time, and even as del Rosario claims that the Philippines “has exhausted almost all political and diplomatic avenues for a peaceful negotiated settlement” of the territorial spat, still China continues to make an indisputable claim to almost the entire South China Sea, including the country’s claimed territories in the West Philippine Sea.

So acrimonious China’s claim is and has been that not only has it printed a map of the disputed West Philippine Sea on their newly issued Chinese e-passports, but to prove it, it has already been encroaching and occupying structures built on submerged banks, reefs and other elevations that are considered part of the Philippine continental shelf or the international seabed.

And so, the country’s complaint before the UN also demands China “to desist from unlawful activities that violate the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the Philippines under the 1982 UNCLOS.

While going to the UN for help may seem to be our last option for settling the dispute, I don’t think any favorable decision by the tribunal will be binding as well for China.

The tribunal, according to international law experts, does not contain provisions “on how to decide the competing sovereignty claims in the West Philippine Sea.”

While the UNCLOS has a compulsory settlement provision that mandates parties to peacefully negotiate disputes, it also has Clause 298 that allows a party to “opt out” from mandatory settlement.

It will be noticed that China has, time and again, maintained its disagreement with settling its territorial issues using UNCLOS or in any international tribunal. It said that the dispute may only be resolved through direct negotiations between concerned parties.

This is why China, in its response to del Rosario’s moves, said, that a request by the Philippines for a U.N. tribunal to intervene in its longstanding South China Sea territorial dispute with China would only complicate the issue, and denounced the country instead of “illegal occupation” of islands in the Western Philippine Sea.

China supports talks, but only on a bilateral basis with the countries directly involved, as previously agreed on by China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Until the Philippine government goes higher to the international tribunals like the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, there will always be China displaying its dominion over the whole of South China Sea.

Talking about an elusive solution!

 

Phl-Japan forges strong partnership to thwart China aggression

Phl Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario (l) and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida

Poor and powerless as the Philippines is and having China aggressively asserting their so-called “nine-dash” line map by claiming most of the South China Sea, including waters close to our shores and that of our neighbors in the region, it becomes more and more a necessity that we accept the help of a sympathetic nation which happens to be having the same problem with China as us.

The indispensability of forging strong ties with an ally like Japan becomes even more urgent when China has gone more belligerent by establishing a local governing authority to rule over the South China Sea and building more infrastructures in disputed areas.

Thus, the call for cooperation and stronger partnership with the Philippines by Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida could not have come at a very opportune time.

“As the strategic environment in the region is greatly changing, it is necessary for us foreign ministers to share recognition of the situation,” Kishida said after meeting Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario.

Kishida said this also made it necessary to “enhance the strategic partnership between the two countries and cooperate in shaping a peaceful and prosperous Asia-Pacific region.”

Tensions between the Phl government and China started in April 2012 over the latter’s overlapping claims in the Scarborough Shoal and the Kalayaan Islands, which were within the country’s 200 nautical mile, or exclusive economic zone, as provided by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or Unclos.

Tokyo, on the other hand, has an ongoing dispute with Beijing over the Diaoyu Island, which the Japanese call Senkaku.  Tokyo, however, took a hard stance in laying claim to the island, which forced China to bring the issue before the Unclos.

Not only that. China knows that, unlike in the Phl waters where the reign supreme because of their superior military wares, their intrusion in the disputed islands in the East China Sea, once detected by the Japanese military radar always calls for the immediate scrambling their F-15 jet fighters from their Okinawa airbase.

In contrast, we can only mumble, curse inside us and stand utterly defenseless when confronted with the same brazen encroachment in what we and the Unclos consider as the country’s territory.

It is in this regard that the Philippine government is now contemplating of acquiring, through loans, 10 new patrol boats from Japan to guard its territorial waters, after buying two refurbished coastguard vessels from major military ally the United States.

“The acquisition of multi-role response vessels is undergoing serious consideration,” del Rosario said, with talks also under way to improve its communications equipment and train its personnel.

Embracing and accepting friendly allies’ support in whatever capacity to bolster the morale of our brave, but miserably equipped and poorly armed navies and marines, is what is needed to show courage that we had had enough of bullying and harassment by the Chinese right at our own backyard.

The return of Japan’s militarism

 

Militarism is defined as the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests.

And so, in the light of China’s aggressive maritime posturing in the East China Sea, where Beijing is having a stand-off with Tokyo over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands, known as the Diaoyu in China, it is now highly probable that Japan will drop its pacifist constitution and revert back to militarism if only to stave off China’s malapropos incursion and claim of the islands.

With China’s economic and military power ascending, it has been arrogantly flexing its muscles upon its Asian neighbors and imposing its desires at will.

It will be noted that China is also locked in dispute with its poorer neighbors in the South China Sea, where this bullying nation is claiming sovereignty of the area, to include territorial waters of contesting countries.

China’s historical claim is contested by the Philippines as well as Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, which have overlapping claims to some or all of those same areas.

The South China Sea is not only a major sea lane, but is also believed to contain enormous mineral and oil resources.

It is precisely for this reason that the Philippines welcomes the news about Japan’s return to militarism.

“We would welcome that very much,” Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told the Financial Times in an interview. “We are looking for balancing factors in the region and Japan could be a significant balancing factor.”

Del Rosario was simply echoing the government’s view that Japan should upgrade its military from a self defense force so that it has more freedom to operate in the region.

This encouraging news could never have come in such an opportune time when threats were issued that China’s patrol boats from Hainan province will intercept vessels entering what it considered its territorial waters.

Beijing even made matters worse when it started issuing passports that include a map of its “nine-dash” claim to almost the entire South China Sea, parts of which are also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan and Indonesia. The Philippines, however, has refused to stamp the new passports in protest.

This is a big boost for the small claimant nations in the South China Sea as the news comes days before an election in Japan that could see the return as prime minister of Shinzo Abe, who is committed to revising Japan’s pacifist constitution and to beefing up its military.

There is no doubt that Japan’s return to militarism will affect the military balance in Asia.

Despite Japan’s pacifist constitution, imposed by the US after the war, its armed forces is still a force to reckon with.

China’s licentious behavior

China’s newest aircraft carrier

The way China has been recently acting towards its Asian neighbors only shows how power has corrupted this giant nation’s leadership.

Every nation in the world is at awe at how, in a very short time, it has become the second largest global economic power and how its economy has developed China into a military power that many says will surpass the U.S. in a few years time.

Thus, the increasing defense spending for the modernization of China’s People’s Liberation Army, which includes all branches of the military, saw it unveiled its newest wave of technology and hardware this year with its first two stealth fighters being test-flown, its first refurbished aircraft carrier, launched, and a new attacked helicopter, displayed.

No doubt these events have raised concern in the region especially that China has been actively pursuing and asserting its sovereignty over islands or waters also claimed by other nations such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan and others in the South and East China Seas.

It is because of this new found might that China seems to be treating its Asian neighbor’s right  defiantly and in a manner appropriately described as licentious.

Not only that.

The controversial ‘nine-dash-line’ territory claimed by China

To further show to the world China’s arrogance, its leaders have allowed their country’s new passports to contain maps of territories they claim as theirs, like, the controversial “nine-dash line” that runs almost to the Philippine and Malaysian coasts, the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands in the East China sea, which is being contested with Japan, and, even, the border areas of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin, which is being disputed with India.

The new passport is another contentious issue brewing up and, in fact, have provoked angry reactions from around the region, with Vietnam, Taiwan, India and Japan all expressing their objections amid an ongoing row over Beijing’s territorial claims.

The Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that immigration personnel would stamp “a separate visa application form” instead of the Chinese passport.

The same action has already been undertaken by Vietnam first.

Note the ‘nine-dash-line’ on the new Chinese passport

Stamping the Chinese passport could be “misconstrued” as legitimizing China’s claim over vast parts of the South China Sea, which are also claimed in part by the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan.

It remains to be seen what action India and Japan will take.

If the military muscle flexing, the economic thrust and the historical territorial claims are not evil practices of lording it over everybody, then I don’t know how else to describe what China is doing.

Old Phl bases for US military use again

 

The way the world is shaping up today, especially in the ASEAN region that includes Brunei Darussalam, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, which is perceived by world leaders as the upcoming global game changer, the need for a peaceful, stable and secured region to sustain its economic growth cannot be overemphasized.

With an estimated combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.1 trillion and a combined population of about 609 million people, ASEAN is a regional economic force that is quickly becoming the free trade hub of Asia.

The region is an increasingly important global value chain player and a preferred production base for many multinational companies exporting to East Asia, North America, and Europe. It is also an important air and sea transportation gateway and a critical access point to China.

It is on this premise, coupled with the despicable military muscle flexing and bullying tactics of China brazenly displayed upon the Filipinos and the Vietnamese in their earlier respective territorial disputes with the Chinese, that many Filipinos feel that allowing the US military to use again the former Subic Bay naval base and the Clark Air base is not only timely, but necessary as well.

More than keeping peace and order in the region, the US military presence in the area reassures the countries having disputes with China on territorial claims, that never again will tensions be felt as it did to us earlier this year, when our poorly equipped vessels and superior Chinese ships were locked in a stand-off at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea.

The Philippines has repeatedly expressed concern about a perceived more aggressive Chinese presence in the South China Sea. In the Spratly group of islands alone, massive structures have been built and continue to be built.

China claims virtually all of the South China Sea, even waters close to the coasts of the Philippines and other Asian countries.

The build up of Chinese military structures in the South China Sea is a prelude to what they want to happen in the future – hegemony over the region and the sea lanes.

No matter how one looks at it, especially if you are a Filipino, the plan of the US military to bolster forces in the Asia-Pacific region to protect the surrounding areas and to ensure that commerce and trade through commercial shipping will go unhampered, is the best thing that could happen to us, as President Aquino’s government is charting a progressive future.

While we recognized our soured differences with the Americans during their stint at Subic and Clark, still we would rather opt to stay on the safe side of the Americans, who we know more about, than be on the risky side of the Chinese, who we know less about and yet has the arrogance and impudence to bully us with impunity.

Sometimes, I wonder why, if HongKong Chinese citizens have the audacity to criticize and show animosity at their Chinese brothers in the mainland, for one reason or another, why can’t the Philippine Chinese community show their displeasure and denounce the overbearing and abusive behavior shown by the Chinese military against the Philippine government?

Has this question ever cross your mind?

 

Thank God for Benham Rise – Part II

 

Benham Rise is 2,000 to 5,000 meters deep

The first part was written on August 16, 2011 with the title ‘Philippines pin hopes on Benham Rise’.

After submitting and defending a claim before the UN commission in 2008 for the 13-million hectare area off the coast of Aurora in Luzon, by virtue of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea’s (UNCLOS) definition of the continental shelf as “the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea” up to 370 km (200 nautical miles) from the archipelagic baseline, a reply from the UN was received asking the government to answer some questions before formally approving our claim through a resolution intended to be passed in 2012.

Perhaps the defense was articulately argued and the answers to the questions, convincing, that it made Benham Rise the Philippines’ first successful validation of a territorial claim under UNCLOS.

Finally, Benham Rise is legally ours! Thank God for Benham Rise!

Fortunately, unlike Scarborough Shoal or the Panatag Shoal and other portions of the South China Sea, no other country claims the area that is almost a quarter bigger than the 10.5-million hectare Luzon.

UNCLOS, incidentally, is the same UN convention the Philippines is invoking in its ongoing dispute with China over Scarborough Shoal.

“We own Benham Rise now. This is for future Filipinos,” Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Ramon Paje said.

Indeed it is. I may never see it explored and developed in my generation, but it feels good heading towards the sunset years of my life that the succeeding generations faces a brighter future.

According to experts Benham Rise keeps a large amount of heavy metals like manganese, whose accumulation into manganese nodules can help in the production of steel, among other things.

Considering the area is a seabed, which is known to contain gas hydrates, Benham Rise is also potentially a rich source of natural gas, according to them.

What I can only hope and pray is that, from here on, we shall continue having leaders and public servants who has the interest of the nation and the welfare of the people over and above their own hidden personal and political agendas.

 

Russia anxious of Chinese immigration in its Far East

Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev

The dispute over territorial claims that China is involved in the South China Sea region with some of the South East Asian nations, specifically, Vietnam and the Philippines, and the contested sovereignty issue over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands between China, again, and Japan in the East China Sea, seems to be disturbing the Russian government.

Whether it is aggressive incursion, as what the Chinese are doing in the territories partially claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines as their own following the international law of the sea, but claimed in whole by China for historical reasons, or Chinese immigration, which is feared by Russia to be happening in its Far East region, the end result is the same – that of having aliens entering another country’s territory or domain to stay.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev raised alarm recently over immigration to the remote Far East from giant neighbors such as China, saying the region risked falling into foreign hands.

“The objective of defending our Far Eastern territory from an excessive expansion of citizen from neighboring countries remains. The Far East really is far away. Not too many people live there, unfortunately,” Medvedev said.

Russian Far East

This was simply an echo to what he also said during his visit to the Far East, stating that, ‘if we don’t step up the level of activity of our work [in the Russian Far East], then in the final analysis we can lose everything.’

Medvedev’s fears stem from the fact that when the Soviet Union collapsed and the border between Russia and China opened up, more Chinese started moving in into the Russian territory, realizing the opportunities and resources it had.

On the other hand, many Russians turned their backs from the vast richness of the easternmost part of Siberia known as the Russian Far East and started leaving in droves to the warmer climate and better economy of European Russia.

Needless to say, that while the Russian population dwindled, the Chinese immigrants soared up and because of them, business has flourished in the cold region.

It is said that the region contains nearly all of Russia’s diamonds, 70 percent of its gold and substantial deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, timber, silver, platinum, tin, lead and zinc, as well as rich fishing grounds and vast expanses of unpopulated land.

This is what Russia fears most, that such a wealth of resources will be taken over by China, now a powerful military and economic giant of a nation, if nothing is done fast.

After all, the Chinese are no longer the same ‘yellow peril’ the Russians described them in the 1900s, when they drove about 3000 of them living in Blagoveshchensk into the Amur river to die in retaliation for a Chinese bandit attack on a Russian outpost.