Category: china

china challenge 2

The bad news is that the Philippines remains trapped in the framework of “special relations” with America and is demonstrating the fact before the world. Hell, the bad news is that the Philippines remains an American stooge and takes pride in parading it before its neighbors.

In response to the crisis, Foreign Secretary Alberto del Rosario and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin are preparing to meet with their US counterparts Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta in Washington next week.

The Balikatan war exercises are also currently taking place here, and while that was planned long ago, Beijing is interpreting it to be a response to the crisis. “Anyone with clear eyes saw long ago that behind these drills is reflected a mentality that will lead the South China Sea issue down a fork in the road towards military confrontation,” said the People’s Liberation Army newspaper. US Ambassador Harry Thomas Jr.’s comment that the Balikatan exercises are about “working together in the spirit of the Mutual Defense Treaty” could not have helped to dispel it. The Mutual Defense Treaty calls on the United States and the Philippines to go to war if one or the other is attacked.

But in fact, the Mutual Defense Treaty is an exercise in stupidity. At the very least it’s useless. It’s completely one-sided, the Philippines being perfectly willing to go to war for the United States but the latter being unwilling to do so for the Philippines. Or indeed back us up in our territorial disputes with other countries. We were willing enough to go to war for America in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, but it was never willing to go to war for us over Sabah, or support our claims to it. It won’t go to war over the Spratly island group for us, or back up our claims to it.

At the very most, it cannot endear us to our Asian neighbors. Certainly, it cannot raise us in their esteem that we can espy one bully but not another, that we can see that China is trying to steal from us a group of tiny islands up north but not that America almost stole from us an entire chunk of territory down south. And will continue to try. God helps only those who help themselves. So do the other Asian countries.

Quite apart from that, it cannot earn for us much goodwill from them that we mean to embroil America in a confrontation with China. America may be a comforting presence to us, military and otherwise, but it is not so to our neighbors. Certainly, it is not so to Vietnam, a good deal of its population it decimated in the name of giving them democracy. And which is now probably more democratic, in the sense of its people partaking of the bounties of its earth, than most other countries in Southeast Asia, including us. And certainly it cannot be so to Malaysia and Indonesia, two Muslim countries, given that America’s definition of terrorists, who are largely Islamist fanatics, often forget the part about fanatics.

The Chinese word for crisis is the same as opportunity, and we would do well to heed it. This crisis offers us an opportunity to prove ourselves. Two paths lie before us, one of them well-trodden and the other not taken. The well-trodden path has always led us to perdition, and will continue to bring us there. Isumbong mo kay Uncle Sam is a lose-lose prospect: It will bring us neither the help we want nor the respect we need.

The other path is to show a newfound independence and make our appeal to the other Asian countries in that light. I don’t know that it is a win-win prospect, but I do think it offers at least a win-lose one. It might not get China to accept our claim to the disputed territory, but it might just get the rest of Asia to accept our claim to be part of it. That is not so today, notwithstanding our participation in Asian affairs. We are as alien to it as Australia, and Australia is probably less alien to it than us. At least Australia’s foreign policy is an extension of Australia, but our foreign policy is an extension of America. Who knows? Maybe we take the path less traveled and might lose the dispute but earn the respect.

that’s from conrado de quiros’s inquirer column today, Battle, war, a realistic take on our so-called “mutual” defense treaty with america.  his recommendation though, that we take the path less-, or is that never-, travelled, vis a vis china & panatag — i.e., get the rest of asia on our side vs china — seems to me doomed for as long as we welcome, suffer, whatever, the american presence.

read, too, aljazzera‘s Without question: US military expansion in the Asia-Pacific
william esposo’s: Factor these when dealing with China 
asia sentinel‘s China’s Skewed View of South China Sea History 

Philippines wouldn’t mind some Chinese shell shocks

By W. Scott Thompson

OVER the years I recall cartoonists — who always understand best — showing a globe with a bear behind it, his claws grasping more and more of the territory at the edge of his fingers. The Soviets used it about American moves to “encircle” it in the 1950s, just as the French used it about British imperialist moves in the 19th century. Now, which is more apposite, the cartoons about China extending its reach in Asia, as (for example) its patrol boats protect Chinese fishermen in plainly Filipino waters? Or the ones about the new American moves to reassert itself in Asia as Marines begin establishing a multiplier base in Darwin, Australia?

Of course, it’s always partly the same. As countries’ economies expand, and their navies go with it, the navies have to find things to do — things they can do with new capabilities. Well, what’s better than protecting some Chinese fishermen? It’s not as if the Standing Committee of the Politburo said, “Let’s make a move and show who has power”, but it amounts to the same thing, throughout history. When you’ve asserted your domain over the “South China Sea”, then it follows that your orders go out to your navy to protect it. It’s like when the British, having established valuable trade in India 300 years ago, needed “coaling” stations along the way. Guess where the British African Empire began. It was the same with America, though of course we said it wasn’t an empire.

Now some of the smartest Filipinos are saying that the best thing the Chinese could do for the Philippines is to blast its coast from its vastly superior navy. The country is already showing a rare unanimity and nationhood over the confrontation at the Scarborough Shoal in what Manila calls the West Philippine Sea. If Beijing not only bared its fangs but let loose the cannon, the whole world would react — on Manila’s side. The “work in progress” of building a really coherent Filipino nation would benefit enormously. Already Manila has said that its balikbayan exercises with the United States Navy would proceed, even as Beijing blames them anew for causing the rumpus.

My own feeling is that the Chinese miscalculated. For nine years, the president, the unlamented Gloria Arroyo, let the Chinese have whatever they wanted, in return for personal favours — like the incredible broadband project, which allegedly carried with it a 50 per cent cut to the first family (or more) and blew up in their faces. Yet the Chinese ambassador who presided over all this in Manila, instead of getting the reward of a high position in the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, as he no doubt expected, was sent to Jakarta instead. Maybe the wise men of Beijing knew he’d missed the point. The Philippines doesn’t want vassalage.

Now meantime, Washington has a president whose view of the world didn’t start with Europe, like every predecessor of his. Europe’s shine was dimming anyway. He started in Asia, having spent his boyhood in Jakarta and Hawaii. It gives that global map a different perspective. And interestingly, that perspective corresponded with the real trend in world politics, everything shifting perceptibly to Asia. It was going to happen anyway, but Barack Obama has speeded up the shift in American priorities.

We have three tiers regarding China. There’s the inner circle, Japan, South Korea and in effect Taiwan. There’s a second rung, which Obama is beefing up. Basing in Singapore, Australia — and long talks with Filipinos about how best to “protect” them. And there are long talks with some surprising folks not so far from where you readers are sitting. Some are speculating even long talks about the very bases in Vietnam that we withdrew from in defeat a long generation ago. Just look at the map and imagine the rest. The fact is, China is utterly dependent on free passage through the Strait of Malacca; it would be crippled in months if cut off.

Of course, the third tier is the Seventh Fleet, Pearl Harbor, and the American mainland.

So, when a senior Filipino adviser said that he hoped Beijing “bombs the hell out of us, because then the Philippines becomes a united nation”, he meant it. And of course he knows the consequences. Asean tightens up, solidarity all around, and Obama doubles the base in Darwin and Manila renews long dormant but never dead ties (and tons of military assistance to the Philippines).

That’s why smarter people in Beijing are having second thoughts; if for nothing else, for timing. It’s too soon for them to start baring the claws.

china challenge

why indeed is communist china claiming ownership of panatag shoal (aka bajo de masinloc and scarborough shoal) in the west philippine sea when it is clearly within philippine territory?  says a chinese embassy spokesman:

“It is China that first discovered this island, gave it the name, incorporated it into its territory, and exercised jurisdiction over it…

“The Philippine territory is set by a series of international treaties, including the Treaty of Paris (1898), the Treaty of Washington (1900) and the Treaty with Great Britain (1930), none of which ever referred to Huangyan Island or included this island into its territory. Until 1997, the Philippine side has never disputed China’s jurisdiction of and development on Huangyan Island. On the other hand, the Philippines indicated on a number of occasions that Huangyan Island was beyond its territory.

“According to the international law, including United Nations Convention on theLaw of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Philippines’ claim of the jurisdiction rights and sovereignty rights over Huangyan Island with the arguments of ExclusiveEconomic Zone (EEZ) is groundless.

“UNCLOS allows coastal states to claim a 200-nautical-mile EEZ, but coastal states have no rights to infringe on the inherent territory and sovereignty of other countries. The Philippines asserts that Huangyan Island is closer to its territory, but in fact “geographical proximity” has long been dismissed by the international law and practice as the principle of the solution of territory ownership.”

the most taray rejoinder from our side (that i’ve found) comes, ironically enough, from the communist left, party chair jose maria sison himself, in an interview by renato reyes, posted on bayan.ph 

The UNCLOS is the strongest legal basis for the definition of the territorial sea and EEZ of the Philippine archipelago. Also, archaeological evidence shows that the islands, reefs and shoals at issue have been used by inhabitants of what is now the Philippines since prehistoric times. But the Philippine reactionary government muddles the issue and undermines its own position by making historical claims that date back only to a few decades ago when pseudo-admiral Cloma made formal claims to the Kalayaan group of islands.

Chinese historical claims since ancient times amount to an absurdity as this would be like Italy claiming as its sovereign possession all areas previously occupied by the Roman empire. The name China Sea was invented by European cartographers and should not lead anyone to think that the entire sea belongs to China. In the same vein, neither does the entire Indian Ocean belong to India.

the left, of course, is quick to distance itself from china — blatantly capitalist rather than communist, joma says — but at the same time, it would seem that joma is giving china the benefit of the doubt, the incursions are “alleged,” sabay suggest that the aquino admin is only hyping china as an imperialist aggressor to justify the further entrenchment of american military forces in the country.

what really intrigues me is the timing of the scarborough face-off, just when filipino and american military forces were gearing up for balikatan exercises in palawan and luzon, involving 4,500 U.S. troops.  if no such military exercises were in the offing, would china have protested so belligerently the philippine action vs the chinese fishermen, as though to say, don’t count us out?  if no such military exercises were in the offing, would the philippine government have been brave enough to accost the fishermen and risk the ire of china,  as though to say, we’ve got america behind us?

we’re caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, between a rock and hard place.  with economic policies that have kept us poor and undeveloped, dependent on foreign credit and foreign remittances and foreign goods, a basket case of a third world country that can’t stand on its own two feet, economically or militarily, it’s no wonder our sovereignty is always under challenge, our limits being tested, if not by the military presence of the U.S, then by chinese fishermen trespassing in, and chinese gunboats patrolling, our waters.

just our luck.  given our strategic location and supposedly-still-huge untapped natural wealth under the ground and the seas, rival powers america and china both want pieces, if not all, of us; they just have different ways of getting what they want.

the notion is that if/when push comes to shove, america will rise to the occasion and back us up against china, but in exchange for what more, i wonder.

unless, maybe, china gets to the aquino admin first.  quid pro quo: we back off but you approve this and/or that contract, or you get that pro-mining law passed, yikes!  whatever, sana the president stands tall.  but hey (at the risk of being facetious), baka naman all they want is an official apology for the luneta massacre, ano? — that should be easy, and relatively painless, um, maybe except for the president.

oops.  just saw this on the news: China and Russia launched today, sunday, joint naval exercises in the yellow sea that highlight warming ties between their militaries and growing cooperation in international affairs.  omg.  painit nang painit.  as if it weren’t hot enough.

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Mag-rally kaya ang Pilipinong manginisda sa Scarborough shoal?  by Ellen Tordesillas
China stand-off to affect business? by Boo Chanco
Thorny sovereignty issue by Carol Pagaduan Araullo
Understanding the Philippine Stand-off with China by Steven Rood
Wikileaks cables: Arroyo scandals affected Spratlys, Scarborough
Aquino and international law by Harry Roque
South China Sea represents ‘a new Persian Gulf?’ by Chito Sta. Romana
Fighting Spirit Award by Indolent Indio

The birthing of the new

By Elmer A. Ordoñez

…  Our report on Philippine PEN’s resolutions calling for the release of imprisoned academic and writer Li Xiaobo and deploring President Aquino’s decision to follow China’s lead in boycotting the Nobel peace award rites for Li Xiaobo, elicited some comment from readers.

One irate reader from abroad, a good friend of long standing, asked in effect that while supporting a Chinese writer of conscience, what has Philippine PEN done for our own journalists who are killed? He was misinformed.

I had to point out that Philippine PEN has been consistent in following the PEN International charter upholding freedom of expression and of the press. Ever since the stories about extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances came out, the Philippine PEN has been passing resolutions at its annual conferences condemning the killings of journalists and the harassment of writers like Alex Pinpin (one of the Tagaytay Five) and more recently of PEN board Chairman and National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera and PEN board member Jun Cruz Reyes. The Maguindanao massacre of at least 58 civilians including 32 journalists was also condemned in PEN meetings.

During martial law, Philippine PEN led by F. Sionil Jose and Salvador P. Lopez solicited signatures of members and other writers for the release of fellow writers in prison. Among those imprisoned were Lumbera, Jose Lacaba, Boni Ilagan, Pete Daroy, Joma Sison, Dolores Feria, Ninotchka Rosca, Luis Teodoro and Mila Aguilar who were detained in various periods. Nick Joaquin, one of the signatories in the PEN statement, made it a condition that he would not accept the National Artist award unless poet Lacaba was released. Sison and Mila Aguilar were released along with other political prisoners by Corazon Aquino who took over as president after EDSA in February 1986.

Filipino writer Isabel Escoda, based in Hong Kong, shared Philippine PEN’s position in deploring President Aquino’s decision not to send a representative to Oslo’s Nobel peace award rites invoking national interest. The “inane excuse” (saving Filipinos caught in China for drug trafficking) of the President is “another case of obfuscation.” She added, “the president apparently forgot that his illustrious mother had once been nominated for the Peace Prize herself.”

UP professor Roland Simbulan wrote that Li Xiaobo is in prison “for his uncompromising stand on free speech, free expression and freedom to assemble, and yet we side with the position of those who put him in jail as a common criminal? He may be conservative in his political views but at this point in time, he had become a defiant symbol of non-violent resistance to autocratic rule in an emerging global superpower.”

Related to this issue of what I call “kowtowing” to China on the Nobel peace prize award is what Hong Kong (a special administrative region of China) wants regarding the hostage crisis that has already put the Philippines to worldwide shame. The Hong Kong coroner asks that 116 witnesses testify at its own inquest.

An expatriate professor teaching in Hong Kong thinks that sending witnesses would be another occasion for the Philippines to be humiliated—given the instances of how migrants or expatriates have been treated by police and justice officers. The hostage crisis has also provided an opportunity for the Donald Tsang administration to rehabilitate itself by channeling “the righteous anger” of the Hong Kong people (against Tsang over constitutional reform legislation) to the “corrupt and inept” government of the Philippines—stoked by the anti-Filipino media.

As we earlier said, these two incidents with China—the hostage crisis and the Li Xiaobo case—and how the P-Noy administration has handled them, do not augur well for an independent foreign policy. It seems that the P-Noy administration, save for Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, is inclined to ingratiate itself to China—for the “national interest” not so much to save the Filipino drug traffickers as to draw Chinese aid and investments. Time for us to recall what Senator Claro Recto said about “our mendicant foreign policy” in 1951 when he criticized the “panhandling attitude” of the Philippine government toward the superpower across the Pacific. Recto emphasized national self-reliance for a “dependent nation cannot expect respect from other nations.”

Without self-respect as a nation, the new order cannot be born.

eaordonez2000@yahoo.com