China is the "biggest disruptor" of peace in Southeast Asia, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro said today, as tensions between Manila and Beijing over disputed reefs and waters in the South China Sea escalate.
Teodoro made the remarks at a conference of the US Indo-Pacific Command after repeated confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels in the waterway over the past 12 months.
Beijing claims almost the entirety of the sea, brushing aside rival claims by other countries, including Taiwan and the Philippines, and an international ruling that its stance has no legal basis.
Photo: AP
China's claims include reefs and waters inside the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends about 370km from the country's coastal waters.
"China ... is the biggest disruptor of international peace in the ASEAN region," Teodoro said.
Speaking to reporters, Teodoro urged other countries to call out China's "illegal acts" until it yields to pressure to stop its actions.
"We need a collective consensus and a strong call out against China," said Teodoro. "We are struggling against a more powerful adversary."
His comments come a day after China said it took "control measures" against two Philippine Coast Guard ships that had entered waters near Sabina Shoal (Xianbin, 仙賓礁) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島).
The Philippine Coast Guard had sent two vessels to deliver provisions to one of its ships at the reef.
They were forced to abandon the mission due to China's "excessive" deployment of ships and rough sea conditions, Commodore Jay Tarriela, a spokesman for Manila's coast guard, said yesterday.
Several confrontations have taken place in recent days around Sabina Shoal, located 140km west of the Philippine island of Palawan and about 1,200km from Hainan Island, China's nearest major landmass.
Both sides have stationed coast guard vessels at the shoal in recent months. Manila fears Beijing is about to build an artificial island.
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
RSS