US Secretary of State John Kerry was in the Philippines yesterday, seeking to modernize economic and political ties with one of the US’ oldest allies in Southeast Asia.
Kerry’s two-day visit took him to the capital, Manila, for talks with government officials and the business community.
As he did on his previous stop in Vietnam, Kerry planned to discuss maritime security with authorities in the Philippines, which also has territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Photo: Reuters
“They will certainly discuss the specific issues pertaining to the South China Sea,” a senior US department of state official said.
These issues range from helping the Philippines to strengthen its capacity for tasks such as maritime domain awareness, or finding out who is in its territorial waters and why, to legal issues over the country’s challenge to China’s claim on what is known as the nine-dash line, the official added.
“In the near term, there’s a need for practical measures to prevent incidents or manage them if they occur in a way that avoids escalation,” the official said.
Regional tension with China has escalated over the territorial claims in the South China Sea. Separately, China and Japan are embroiled in a dispute over islands in the East China Sea.
The US has said it is not taking sides in any of the disputes, but in recent weeks has moved to defend its allies in the region against new moves by Beijing to control regional waters.
Today, Kerry is set to travel to Tacloban in the central Philippines, the epicenter of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which decimated towns and villages on Nov. 8. The storm has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced 4 million.
US marines and humanitarian groups have joined a multimillion-dollar relief effort to deliver aid to the survivors.
While the US has said it does not intend to open new military or naval bases in the region, Kerry will discuss ways that the US can help respond quicker during disasters in the region, such as the typhoon.
The heightened tension with China has raised concerns that a minor incident in the disputed sea could quickly escalate. US and Chinese warships narrowly avoided a collision in the South China Sea last week, the US Pacific Fleet said in a statement on Friday.
In Hanoi on Monday, Kerry pledged US$32.5 million in new assistance to strengthen the capacity of Southeast Asian nation’s to patrol the seas.
Beijing’s assertion of sovereignty over a vast stretch of the South China Sea has set it directly against Vietnam and the Philippines — the two countries Kerry is visiting — while Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia also lay claim to parts of the sea, making it one of Asia’s biggest potential trouble spots.
On Monday, Kerry warned China to refrain from unilateral actions in the region and particularly over the South China Sea, urging countries to resolve their differences peacefully.
Kerry will also update Philippine government officials on talks between the US and 11 other nations in the Pacific Rim on reaching a trade agreement.
His visit to Southeast Asia comes as the US strives for a trade deal with 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is the centerpiece of US efforts to refocus attention on the fast-growing region.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
RSS