The Philippines hopes to balance its interests between the US and China when tackling its territorial dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea, a presidential adviser said yesterday.
Addressing a conference in Manila before a meeting between the Philippine and Chinese foreign ministers in Beijing, the adviser also suggested that smaller claimants to stretches of the sea should work together to protect their interests.
“We should know how to balance our interests between the two superpowers,” Ronald Llamas, political adviser to Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, told the gathering, saying Manila should negotiate through ASEAN. “Smaller states must work together as a bloc and avoid taking any side. ASEAN should be a fulcrum to balance the interests of the US and China. The problem can be avoided by not being partisan.”
Photo: Reuters
Rival claims to parts of the South China Sea were expected in the talks yesterday between Philippine Foreign Minister Alberto del Rosario and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔箎).
Yang, quoted by Xinhua news agency, said del Rosario’s visit would be helpful for the two countries to increase communication and coordination in international and regional affairs.
Last month, Del Rosario traveled to Washington, with which the Philippines has a security alliance. He secured a strong pledge of support from US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who expressed concern about developments in the sea.
The South China Sea covers the world’s second-busiest sea lanes and rich fishing grounds, and -straddles rich oil and natural gas deposits. China has made the largest claim over the area, and Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines also claim territorial sovereignty.
China wants one-to-one negotiations with each of the claimants rather than dealing with them within ASEAN and rejects any suggestion of US involvement in the process.
Beijing says it has historical sovereignty over the region, which it says supersedes claims of other countries under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Manila has accused Beijing of a number of infringements of its territory this year, including placing poles near a reef that would be a breach of an informal code of conduct agreed between ASEAN and China in 2002.
Vietnam has also complained about Chinese actions in waters it claims, including the cutting of seismic cables on a ship.
In April, Manila protested to the UN over China’s “nine-dotted line” claim over the entire South China Sea that Beijing had submitted in 2009.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS