MANILA, Philippines - A “very gradual warming up” of relations
with China has begun and would likely continue as “ultra nationalist” sentiment
in Beijing is likely to ease after a leadership change next month, President
Aquino said yesterday.
“We hope these domestic pressures
on China will be lessened after the transition, so we will have more room to
negotiate and discuss in more reasonable terms and less ultra-nationalist
terms,” Aquino told reporters.
“We are taking a wait-and-see
attitude,” he added.
This developed as Filipino and
Chinese foreign affairs officials are set to meet in Manila tomorrow to review
existing cooperation and chart the direction of relations between the countries
under the 18th Foreign Ministry Consultations.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary
Erlinda Basilio heads the Philippine panel, while her counterpart is Chinese
Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying.
Tensions over competing claims to
parts of the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea escalated in April when
Chinese maritime surveillance vessels arrived in Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal to
prevent Philippine authorities from arresting Chinese poachers caught with
illegal harvest of endangered corals, live sharks, and giant clams. The Chinese
vessels have not left the shoal since then and have declared the area China’s
territory called Huangyan Island. Panatag Shoal, also locally called Bajo de
Masinloc, is only 124 nautical miles from Zambales and is well within the
country’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone.
As diplomatic relations plummeted,
the Philippines accused China of “duplicity” and “intimidation” in pressing its
claims to large areas in the West Philippine Sea.
Some organs of China’s state-run
media also called for war against the Philippines, while the Chinese government
established a new city and military garrison overseeing disputed territories in
the South China Sea.
Aquino said the domestic
pressures in China ahead of its once-in-a-decade transition of power had
affected efforts to improve diplomatic relations to a level seen before the
dispute flared.
China claims nearly all of the
South China Sea and West Philippine Sea, even waters close to the coasts of
neighboring countries.
Chinese President Hu Jintao is
expected to hand over power as head of the ruling Communist Party to Vice
President Xi Jinping during a congress starting on Nov. 8. But Hu will remain
the country’s president until next March.
No back-channel talks
President Aquino also said there
are no back-channel talks with China on the territorial issues – at least for
now.
He also denied taking a bilateral
approach to addressing the problem.
“Currently there are no
back-channel efforts,” he told members of the Foreign Correspondents
Association of the Philippines at the Manila Hotel.
Earlier, Sen. Antonio Trillanes
IV was found to be involved in back-channel talks with Beijing, with the
Palace’s blessings.
“That is not correct,” he said
when asked if Trillanes’ China mission was an indication of the President’s
openness to bilateral talks, which Beijing prefers.
“Bilateral (talks) can be a
component but multilateral is the approach. The problem is multilateral. In
ASEAN alone, there are four countries of the 10 who are claimants to the
Spratlys group,” he said. “So, how can two talk or how can one of four talk with
China and bind the other three?”
He stressed that multilateral
talks can only be effective if it “binds everybody.”
“Otherwise, we settle a portion
of the problem and we retain the rest of the problem,” he told the group of
foreign and local journalists.
Nevertheless, Aquino said there
seemed to be a “little bettering” of the relations between Manila and Beijing,
despite the two sides’ holding their ground firmly.
He cited Interior and Local
Government Secretary Manuel Roxas’ meeting with leader-in-waiting Xi at the
China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning City recently to discuss the territorial dispute.
“The little warming up is that
they have initiated dialogue with us. Initially at Vladivostok (in Russia at
APEC summit) but that didn’t push through but subsequently at the China-ASEAN
Expo,” Aquino recounted.
“The messages were practically
the same, only there are some differences. That’s why I said there seems to be
a very gradual warming up. I want to be very precise. We are hopeful this
gradual warming up will be really warmed up by the time of the transition,” he
said.
Aquino said the mood was
different at the height of the standoff at Panatag.
“If you were to return to what it
was before the conflict in Bajo de Masinloc happened, then that is a very significant
improvement,” he said. “We go back to their statements about adhering to
international law, which is also the position we have adopted from the very
beginning, and specifically we both mentioned UNCLOS (United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea) and we’re both signatories to UNCLOS and various other
treaties,” he added.
“At some point, we do have to
defend our interests but we might have to defend it more vigorously. And by
that I mean we take it up in the international fora, the adjudicating tribunals
that are already stated under international law,” he reasoned out.
“The whole point of the exercise
is, from the start… not to escalate the conflict but to deescalate it,” he
said. “I’m really not comfortable telegraphing our intentions to the other
side.”
“There is some degree of change
in terms of a little bettering of the situation. I have to emphasize a little
bettering of the situation compared to where it was at the height of the
tensions,” he said.
“But we’re still a long way from
really taking it back to where it was.
“We are still hoping that we will
resolve this amicably; that reasonable voices will prevail; and that both sides
are really geared towards arriving at a solution that will satisfy not just the
bilateral concerns but, more importantly, I guess the multilateral concerns
affecting this issue.” – Rainier Allan
Ronda
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