As the show of unity among Southeast Asian leaders appeared to crumble
over differences in the approach to South China Sea (West Philippine Sea)
tensions, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III pointedly asked the United States
yesterday to be involved in the discussions, a move likely to anger China.
“It is especially vital to have
the world’s largest national economy involved in the discussions considering
the interconnectedness of our current milieu,” he told an audience that
included US President Barack Obama and fellow leaders in the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
Aquino’s call came at a
particularly sensitive time during the 21st Asean Summit and related summits
here after he openly rebuked host Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen for saying
a consensus had been reached not to internationalise the issue.
He said the Philippines and
another country, later identified in news reports as Vietnam, did not agree to
exclude other parties from the negotiations with China for a solution to the
raft of territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a portion of which Manila
calls the West Philippine Sea.
China has long insisted that the
disputes should be resolved through bilateral or country-to-country talks and opposed
the involvement of external parties such as the United States, while the
Philippines has pushed for a multilateral solution.
Addressing the 4th Asean-US
Leaders Meeting, one of the side summits here, Aquino said the United States,
the Philippines’ most important ally, had a role to play in the discussions,
especially in light of its touted “pivot” to the Pacific to check China’s
growing military assertiveness.
“Each one of our nations has a
stake in the stability of Southeast Asia. The United States understands this
and, for this reason, has chosen to work with us to ensure the peace and
continuous advancement of our region,” he said.
Aquino said the US presence at
the Asean summits “adds a special dimension to our regional discussions
particularly on issues that have far-reaching political and economic
implications.”
“Our region is very diverse and
its harmony can easily be disrupted by sheer political, military, or economic
might. Imbalance, as we know, may lead to instability,” he said.
“While we are all aware that the
US does not take sides in disputes, they do have a strategic stake in the
freedom of navigation, unimpeded commerce, and the maintenance of peace and
stability in the South China Sea,”
Aquino said.
He then proceeded to lay out the
Philippine position that territorial and maritime disputes should be settled
peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law.
“We continue to support the
further inclusion of economies active in the region in these discussions. They
serve to expand our capacities as an organisation and they will certainly
accelerate our progress in the pursuit of shared prosperity for the region,” he
said.
Later in the evening, during a
briefing for Philippine media at Sofitel, where Aquino was billeted, the
President said the US, as the biggest economy, should not be left out of the
talks considering its own stakes in the region.
“We recognise that they also have
a right to say their piece and to be active in advancing also their interests.
We have long said that if it’s a multilateral problem, you can’t have a
bilateral solution,” he said.
Earlier yesterday, Aquino made a
terse interjection as Hun Sen was bringing another side meeting, the 4th
Asean-Japan Summit, to a close, in which, while summarising the proceedings,
the Cambodian leader said there was now Asean consensus to keep negotiations
within an “Asean-China framework”.
At that point, the Philippine
president raised his hand to object. “The Asean route is not the only route for
us,” he said. Aquino said the Philippines, as a sovereign state, had the right
to defend its national interest.
But in the media briefing, he
said that besides Hun Sen’s statement about not internationalising the issue,
he had no other complaints against the host Cambodia, a close China ally.
“They allowed me to keep talking.
I have no complaints. Actually (Hun Sen) even apologised when he did not
immediately see me raising my hand….They did not try to block what I wanted to
say. There were no behind-the-scenes request for me to keep quiet,” he said.
Relations between Cambodia and
the Philippines turned frosty after an Asean foreign ministers meeting in July
when they tussled over the language of a customary joint communique that was
supposed to be issued at the end of the talks.
Phnom Penh, the host of the 2012
summits, including the foreign ministers meeting in July, came under criticism
when it rejected any mention of disputes of individual Asean states with
Beijing, particularly Scarbourough Shoal, which was then at the centre of a
maritime standoff between Manila and Beijing in the West Philippine Sea.
The deadlock stymied the issuance
of a joint communique at the close of the meeting, the first time in Asean’s
45-year history, and critics alleged that Cambodia was acting under pressure
from China, which did not want any references to the territorial disputes in
the statement.
Asean members Vietnam, the
Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia, along with Taiwan, have overlapping claims to
parts of the South China Sea, while China claims virtually the whole body of
water as its own, often sparking maritime tensions.
The South China Sea is believed
to hold vast deposits of oil and gas and is home to sea lanes through which
half of global trade passes.
In April, a standoff that lasted
months occurred between Chinese and Filipino forces over the disputed Scarbourough
shoal off Zambales province.
DJ Yap
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