A conversation with Chinese friends about Aquino and China

SAN FRANCISCO – I had lunch last week with two long time Chinese friends I first met when we visited China together in 1998. While in Beijing then, I introduced them to my old friends from my First Quarter Storm (FQS) days in Manila who had been living and working in Beijing since 1971 and who were all coincidentally managing the China bureaus of their media agencies– Chito Sta. Romana (ABC News), Eric Baculinao (NBC News), and Jimmy Flor-Cruz (Time/CNN).

During our lunch, we reminisced about those old times and inquired about each other’s families before the topic turned to Pres. Benigno S. Aquino’s remarks about China which appeared in the New York Times on February 4, 2014.

My friends told me they were in Beijing when they read the blazing headlines in the newspapers  -“Philippine president compares China turf claims to Nazi legacy”. In the interview with The New York Times, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that Aquino called for “world leaders not to make the mistake of appeasing China as it seeks to cement control over contested waters and islands in the strategically vital South China Sea.”

The newspapers described Aquino as calling on “nations around the world to do more to support the Philippines in resisting China’s assertive claims to the seas near his country, drawing a comparison to the West’s failure to support Czechoslovakia against Hitler’s demands for Czech land in 1938.”
My friends described the furious Chinese reaction to Aquino’s comments which were roundly denounced by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.  In editorials published and aired in all the Chinese media, Xinhua declared that Aquino’s “latest reported attack against China, in which he senselessly compared his northern neighbor to the Nazi Germany, exposed his true colors as an amateurish politician who was ignorant both of history and reality.”

That’s the difference between China and the Philippines, I told my friends. In China, every TV, radio and online news report has to kowtow to the official government script that “Aquino is an ignorant fool who does not know anything about history.” No Chinese reporter or commentator would dare disagree with the Chinese government’s official line.

But in the Philippines, I told them, China’s supporters like Rigoberto Tiglao, the former spokesman of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (“China’s favorite Philippine president” I told my friends), are free to denounce Aquino for his remarks. As viciously as they care to.

For example, in his Manila Times column on February 6, 2014, Tiglao wrote: “Aquino likened China’s claims over the Spratly Islands to Hitler’s demand in 1938 for Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region to be turned over to Nazi Germany. Aquino’s analogy is something only an ignoramus would make… How many people live in the disputed Spratly Islands area which Aquino likens to Sudetenland?”
So does that mean it’s okay for China to seize the Kalayaan Island Group because only a few hundred Filipinos live there unlike the Sudetenland where, Tiglao reported, “22 percent of Czechoslovakia’s population, or 3.2 million people, who considered themselves ethnically Germans, lived”?

Even the Philippines’ most militant labor union, the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), through its secretary-general Roger Soluta, got in on the action and slammed Aquino for “comparing the leaders of China with Adolf Hitler.”

Instead of organizing the workers in the 30 China-owned mining corporations in the Philippines which are exploiting and sucking up the country’s natural resources and blatantly subverting the country’s labor and environmental laws in the process, the KMU is spending its time defending China and attacking Aquino.

I told my friends that the state-run Xinhua news agency and China’s supporters in the Philippines had distorted Pres. Aquino’s comments. According to the New York Times, Aquino said: “Like Czechoslovakia, the Philippines faces demands to surrender territory piecemeal to a much stronger foreign power and needs more robust foreign support for the rule of international law if it is to resist”. He did not compare “the leaders of China with Adolf Hitler”. He simply compared the appeasement of Hitler in 1938 over the Sudetenland issue with the appeasement of China now.

Aquino’s point, as Inquirer columnist Conrado de Quiros correctly noted, was that “if you don’t stop China from fledgling expansionism now, you won’t be able to stop it from full-blown expansionism later.”

My friends told me they respectfully disagreed with me and agreed with what China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei said: “As an unwavering upholder of international justice, China made huge sacrifice and indelible historical contribution to the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War. It is inconceivable and unreasonable to place China-Philippines South China Sea disputes in the same category with the WWII history.” 

In other words, they said, China could not possibly be compared to Hitler because China fought fascism during WW II. Besides, how could China be imperialistic when it suffered under imperialism?
But China has placed the whole South China Sea – all 1.4 million square miles of it – under the jurisdiction and control of its Sansha City Prefecture with a powerful People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval fleet patrolling it and authorized “to board, seize and expel foreign ships” found anywhere in the South China Sea.

China has also placed the entire South China Sea under its Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) which the Philippines denounced as infringing on the freedom of the countries of the world to fly in international airspace, compromising the safety of civil aviation, threatening the national security of all the affected states and transforming the entire air zone of the South China Sea into China’s “domestic airspace.”

It is “inconceivable and unreasonable” to imagine it only because China experienced this same type of imperialist occupation on February 18, 1932 when Japan invaded its territory of Manchuria and proclaimed the state of Manchukuo as the governing body for the occupied region which it had detached from China.

What the Chinese people don’t understand is that the Filipino people are as determined to erase the memory of the establishment of the Sansha Prefecture in 2012 as the Chinese people were determined to erase the memory of the establishment of the Manchukuo Prefecture in 1932.
My friends recalled reading my San Francisco op-ed article about this subject where I described China’s annexation of the South China Sea as “the most brazen maritime territorial grab in history.”

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Filipinos-protest-China-s-actions-4682719.php
But my friends assured me that China does not intend to actually gobble up the Philippines. “We have a long history of friendship. China will not do anything to jeopardize that friendship,” they assured me.
I respectfully disagreed with them and reminded my friends of the old Chinese proverb – “beware of one who speaks with honey in mouth but dagger in heart”.

My friends turned the proverb around and said that was true of the US interests in supporting the Philippines. They asked me: “Don’t you see the US is just using the Philippines to contain China?”
I assured them I harbored no illusions about the self-interest of the US in the conflict between the Philippines and China. But, unlike in the past when the Philippines was acting at the behest of its colonial ruler, here the Philippines is acting on behalf of its own self-interest.

China wants to seize the Ayungin Reef, the gateway to the Recto Bank, which according to the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), contains 17.7 billion tons or approximately 126 billion barrels of oil worth trillions of dollars along with 25.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. China desperately wants this oil to fuel the ever expanding needs of its ever-growing economy. But the Philippines also needs the oil to ensure a prosperous future for the country instead of one dependent on exploited and abused overseas foreign workers. This is what is at stake. This is why Pres. Aquino warned China in his State of the Nation address in July 2011 “If you trample on Recto Bank, it is like you are trampling on Recto Avenue”.

Somehow, our lunch discussion then shifted to Pres. Richard Nixon and the role he played in opening China to the west in 1972. My friends shared that it was actually Chairman Mao Zedong who initiated China’s opening to the US because of its border conflict with the Soviet Union which flared up in violent clashes in 1969. China needed the US as leverage against its more powerful neighbor in the north.

“Bingo! There you go,” I said. The Philippines is simply taking a page from China’s playbook, I told them. It also needs the US as leverage against its more powerful neighbor in the north.
With that, we finished our dessert.

(Send comments to Rodel50@gmail.com or mail them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call 415.334.7800).

source:  Inquirer by Rodel Rodis 

Australia endorses 'code of conduct' for South China Sea

Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop on Thursday voiced her support for the completion of a "code of conduct" aimed at reducing tensions amid China's aggressive claim to almost all of the South China Sea.

Bishop, who is on a visit to the Philippines, said she discussed the matter with her Filipino counterpart Albert del Rosario.

There have been heightened tensions between China and its neighbours -- including the Philippines -- because of disputes over maritime territory.

Bishop said Australia favoured the push by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to craft a "code of conduct" to better manage the issues.

"In the case of the South China Sea, we support ASEAN objectives in concluding a Code of Conduct with China and we hope that there will be some early progress on that," she said.
"We urge all sides not to escalate tensions," she added.

ASEAN has been trying for more than a decade to secure agreement from China on a legally binding code of conduct aimed at reducing tensions and the risk of violence in the South China Sea.
Among ASEAN members are Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, which along with China and Taiwan, have claims to parts or all of the South China Sea.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea, even up to the borders of its neighbours.
Bishop stressed that her country was not taking any side in the dispute, and urged that all issues should be resolved "peacefully".

Bishop said the South China Sea was a key interest to Australia since 60 percent of its exports and 40 percent of its imports passed through the area.

The Philippines has been seeking more international support to challenge China's claims to the South China Sea.

Del Rosario meanwhile said the Philippines had been forced to seek UN arbitration because it had "exhausted all (other) possibilities," in arguing its case with China.

He also said that the Philippines and Australia would be boosting their defence cooperation especially after a "status of visiting forces agreement" between the two countries went into effect in 2012.

Australia already provides military training and education and conducts "table-top" exercises with the Philippines but the agreement opens the door to actual joint military exercises in Philippine territory.
He also thanked Australia for the extensive aid, including the dispatch of Australian troops, ships and aircraft, given to the Philippines after Super Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the central islands in November.

source:  AP News / Yahoo

Filipino military chief: China claims are nonsense

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines military chief vowed Thursday to defend the country's fishermen against any Chinese "terror or intimidation" in the South China Sea, the latest sign of sharpening tensions in what is a potential global flash point.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Gen. Emmanuel Bautista said Chinese claims to islands just off the Philippine coast are "of course absolute nonsense. Just take a look at the map."

China claims almost the whole of the vast South China Sea, which is believed to have significant oil and gas deposits. Beijing has been increasingly assertive in pressing its claims in the ocean against its smaller neighbors, sending navy ships into contested waters and harassing fishing fleets of nations with rival claims.

"Our fishermen will continue on fishing, assert their rights on those areas. They should go on with their lives and live their life as fishermen, not to bow down to terror or intimidation," Bautista said, referring to an incident in which he said a fishing vessel was sprayed by a water cannon on a Chinese boat.

Asked if the Philippine military would defend the fisherman in the event of another incident, he said, "To the best we can, we will support them, especially if there is more aggression and unnecessary use of force."

China and the Philippines, along with Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan, have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, with China and Taiwan claiming the largest swathe of the strategic waters. The United States is a military ally of the Philippines and shares many of the concerns of the small countries regarding China, but says it wants a diplomatic solution.

The United States gave the Philippines two coastguard cutters which have been turned into the country's biggest naval vessels. Bautista said the navy is procuring two new frigates and other vessels to boost its maritime force.

Manila announced last year it has taken its claims to a United Nations-backed tribunal, which will take several years to reach a verdict. China has insisted instead on one-on-one negotiations to resolve the territorial conflicts. Such negotiations, which would give China an advantage because of its sheer size, have been rejected by the Philippines.

Bautista said that decision risked angering China in the short term, but that it was the right course of action.

"They are a big country, we are a small country. What can we do? Bring it to court, solve it through peaceful means," he said.

The Philippine military is one of the weakest in Asia, and for much of the last 40 years has been fighting internal security threats from Muslim separatists and Communist insurgents. Last month, government negotiators announced they had a reached a peace deal with the largest separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Bautista expressed hope that the deal could provide a model for other conflicts in the country, allowing it to focus on external defense and disaster relief in a country prone to earthquakes and typhoons.

source:  AP / Yahoo

Chinese ‘threat’ worrisome for business

A number of businessmen have expressed serious concern at the escalating word war between the Philippines and China, with Chinese media bristling at President Aquino’s New York Times interview “reminding” nations at the global consequences of Hitler’s annexation of Sudetenland.  While there are some who have criticized the President’s firm response with regard to our country’s maritime disputes with China, people with a strong sense of nationalism say they fully support President Aquino’s unrelenting stance to assert our territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Several observers pointed out that China is not above resorting to “economic” arm-twisting to show its displeasure, to put it mildly, recalling the time when Philippine banana exports meant for China worth $23 million were rejected supposedly because Chinese authorities found pests in the fruits. Norway also felt this kind of backlash when tons of Norwegian salmon were left rotting in Chinese warehouses and ports because of the sudden imposition of new import controls – perceived as punishment for awarding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident and pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobao. In fact, while Guangzhou (in addition to Beijing and Shanghai) offered short-term visa-free transit to 45 countries last year, Norway was conspicuously excluded.

Many certainly see shades of China in Hong Kong’s decision to revoke visa-free privileges to Philippine officials and diplomats in retaliation to the Philippines’ continued refusal to issue an apology over the bus hostage-taking incident at the Quirino Grandstand in August 2010 that resulted in the death of eight Hong Kong tourists. In contrast, the Philippines issued an apology to Taiwan when a Taiwanese fisherman was shot by members of the Philippine Coast Guard during an encounter at Balintang Channel. Some businessmen though are wondering why the Philippines could issue an apology to Taiwan over the death of one individual but not to Hong Kong considering the number of casualties in the Luneta incident.  An observer remarked that the economic sanctions imposed by Taiwan must have pressured the government – especially when clamor began to mount from the thousands of overseas Filipino workers whose deployment to Taiwan was derailed.

Many countries including the United States are certainly concerned at the growing boldness of China in asserting control over disputed territories as its own by virtue of the so-called nine-dash line despite objections from other claimant countries and its lack of basis under international law regarding the scope of the claim itself. China also increased its defense spending to about $122 billion last year – driving concern over the security balance in the maritime region.

As noted by US Department of State Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel in his testimony last Feb. 5 before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, what happens in APAC will be felt across the globe and will have direct implications on US interests, considering that half the world’s population, half the world’s GDP and almost half the world’s trade is in the region where some of the fastest growing economies are also located.

“Both the South China and East China Seas are vital thoroughfares for global commerce and energy. Well over half the world’s merchant tonnage flows through the South China Sea, and over 15 million barrels of oil per day transited the Strait of Malacca last year, with most of it continuing onward through the East China Sea to three of the world’s largest economies – Japan, the Republic of Korea, and China. A simple miscalculation or incident could touch off an escalatory cycle,” Russel said, expressing America’s commitment to the rule of law that guarantees freedom of navigation and overflight in reference to China’s declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone and fishing restrictions in disputed territories.

Paranaque Congressman Roilo Golez observed that “South China Sea is much worse than Sudetenland considering today’s general rules on how nations should behave in the international community compared to the ‘might is right’ atmosphere of the 1930s. In this age of supposed international civility, China instead growls and her behavior in the South China Sea is alarming, exasperating and dismaying to say the least. Indeed, ‘Enough is enough’ and it is incumbent upon us to support the national leadership as he performs his duty to tell the world what the bully is doing in our neighborhood, so the world is forewarned.”

SPYBITS By Babe G. Romualdez (The Philippine Star)

US has Philippines’ back vs China’s threats

MANILA, Philippines – Uncle Sam’s got Juan’s back. This was, in essence, the assurance given by the chief naval officer of the United States who said that his country was ready to help the Philippines in matters regarding the conflicted areas in the Spratlys group of islands which China wants to occupy.
“Of course we will help you,” Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations of the US, said in a forum Thursday afternoon at Camp Aguinaldo. “We have a treaty, it’s our obligation.”

Greenert said that China’s aggressive behavior in the waters of the West Philippine Sea and the disputed Spratlys group of islands was outside of what he called “good order” and violated any international norm in any international relations.

“We oppose it, we will work to clarify it,” Greenert said.

The US Navy chief added that the parties involved and the US should have a serious conversation on the matter of the disputed territories and the basis of China in claiming the islands before the dispute spills over to war.

“We don’t want conflict, we don’t want combat, we have to manage this and sit down and talk about it,” he said.

All in this together
Greenert added that, despite, the increased naval presence of the United States in the waters of the Philippines, the operations were not military in nature, rather fostering economic growth.
“We are all in this together.”

He said that the presence of their

source:  Inquirer