MANILA - Another
United States nuclear-powered attack submarine has docked at Subic,
Philippines, a signal to China that its provocations in the South China Sea
will be challenged by more frequent demonstrations of American naval might.
The arrival of the USS Louisville comes just weeks after
another US attack submarine, the USS North Carolina, made a port call at the
same Philippine naval base. The high-profile dockings have been billed as part
of the US's plan to host more rotating American naval forces in the
Asia-Pacific region.
Though officials in Manila and Washington have described
the visits as routine and a normal part of their strategic ties, they also
coincide with the still unresolved standoff between China and the Philippines
over a shoal in the hotly contested and potentially resource rich Spratly
Islands.
The high seas showdown, which began on April 10 and
recently ended without armed exchange, had posed significant risks to
destabilizing regional peace and stability. At one point, China had deployed 33
non-military vessels in a lopsided face-off with two Philippine maritime ships.
In what Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario
portrayed on Monday as a "breakthrough" in diplomatic talks, China
pulled out its remaining 20 boats from the shoal to reciprocate the Philippine
gesture of withdrawing its own vessels.
The Philippines refers to the shoal as Scarborough, or
Bajo de Masinloc, while China calls it Huangyan Island. "There are no
longer boats from either the Philippines or China inside the shoal's lagoon,"
del Rosario said.
While both countries cited typhoons as the reason for
removing their naval assets, it's still possible they will redeploy them as
soon as the weather improves given their continued intransigence in staking
conflicting claims to the maritime territory.
Indeed, new tensions are already percolating. A day after
del Rosario's conciliatory statement, a foreign ship identified initially by
Manila officials as being registered in Hong Kong reportedly rammed a
Philippine fishing boat near the shoal off the waters of Pangasinan province,
north of Manila.
The incident sank a boat with eight Filipino fishermen on
board, killing one and seriously injuring another. Survivors were rescued by
passing Philippine vessels.
While the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is now probing the
incident, it is suspected that the culprit was the Hong Kong-registered,
195-meter bulk carrier commercial ship MV Peach Mountain, which was returning
to China from Indonesia while passing through Philippine-claimed waters.
"But this is just a suspect," PCG commandant
Edmund Tan said. "We are still investigating and coordinating with our
counterparts in the Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Coordinating Center and the Port
State Control in Tokyo and Singapore."
In a show of restraint, Philippine President Benigno
Aquino said his government was not about to accuse China of the sinking of the
Philippine fishing boat without any basis. "We're gathering all necessary
evidence, and we are not accusing anybody at this point in time," he told
reporters.
Like Aquino, the Chinese Embassy in Manila was also in
the dark about the details of the reported "hit-and-run" maritime
incident. In a statement, Zhang Hue, the embassy spokesperson, said "such
media reports remain to be verified."
"Upon seeing the stories, the Chinese Embassy
immediately checked with the relevant authorities in China and was told that
until now there have been no reports of vessel collision, accident or SOS
requests," he said.
Verbal salvos
Foreign reports, however, quoted earlier Rear Admiral Yin
Zhuo, director of China's People's Liberation Army Navy's (PLAN) Information
Expert Committee, as ordering their ships to target "Filipino vessels that
hang around" Scarborough shoal "and don't leave".
He was apparently reacting to Aquino's earlier statement
that he would order the Philippine maritime ships back to the shoal if China
would not pull out its vessels from the hotly contested territory.
The ranking Chinese military official said that Chinese
naval troops should board and search Philippine government ships and private
fishing vessels, similar to what Filipino Marines did to Chinese ships that
strayed into the Philippine-claimed part of the Spratly Islands.
Yin also complained that the "Philippines has not
yet returned 24 Chinese fishing boats it is holding", referring to vessels
intercepted in Philippine territory by the Philippine Navy last October.
While imploring that Chinese troops "must try to
maintain restraint, not force, not hurt people" when going after
Philippine ships found in waters near the shoal, he said China's Navy would not
hesitate to use deadly force against its enemies.
"Our Navy has the absolute ability and the absolute
confidence to use arms to defend our country's sovereignty, territorial
integrity and maritime rights," Yin said. "We're just waiting for the
order."
Strained China-Philippine relations have recently been
exacerbated by warmongering by both sides, raising the temperature of a
situation that still threatens to ignite a shooting war and plunge the maritime
region into military conflict.
The latest maritime incident, accidental or not, may be
viewed as isolated and unrelated to the Spratlys controversy. But there are
hawkish officials in Manila and Beijing who espouse diametrically contrasting
positions and have undermined the spirit of friendship and harmony Aquino and
his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, worked to forge last year. The latest salvo
came from Tang Rui, spokesperson of China's Office of the Commissioner of the
Minister of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong.
In a letter on Wednesday to the Wall Street Journal, he
wrote "China acquired sovereignty over Huangyan Island through discovery
of and presence on the island before anyone else. Hundreds of years of jurisdiction
has consolidated China's sovereignty over the island... On the contrary, the
Philippine claim over the island has never been recognized by any other
country."
The US, meanwhile, is closely watching how Manila and
Beijing react to the latest ship-bumping incident. Washington has appealed
continuously for a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the maritime conflict,
which in part has driven a realignment of its strategic forces from the Middle
East to Asia.
The US may be perceived as biased towards the Philippines
due to their existing mutual defense treaty, seen in the recent dockings of its
nuclear-powered submarines. However, if tensions break out into full-blown
hostilities, it's still not clear that the US would be willing to sacrifice relations
with Beijing to protect its smaller, historical ally.
Al Labita
Al Labita is a Manila-based journalist.
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programmes. Many thanks for visiting www.yourvietnamexpert.com and/or contacting us at contact@yourvietnamexpert.com
No comments:
Post a Comment