Pursuing its pivot to Asia strategy, the United States yesterday handed
over to the Philippines new equipment to improve surveillance and law enforcement
operations in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) as President Benigno
Aquino prepared to meet China’s leader for talks that may include territorial
disputes in those waters.
US Ambassador to the Philippines
Harry Thomas turned over to police and local government officials in Palawan
province two new patrol boats and two boat-towing pick-ups to support the
Philippine National Police Special Boat Unit (SBU) in the island province.
The United States is also helping
the Philippines build a new SBU outstation on Balabac Island, off Palawan’s
southernmost tip close to Sabah in Borneo.
Police and local officials in
Palawan said the new equipment would not be used for border patrols in disputed
parts of the West Philippine Sea but for surveillance against transnational
crimes.
Containing China
But US help to China’s rivals for
territory in the West Philippine Sea is seen in Beijing as an attempt to
contain China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region, drawing hawkish
comments from Chinese military leaders increasingly suspicious about
Washington’s renewed focus on Asia.
The United States has said it has
national interest in the maintenance of stability and freedom of navigation in
the West Philippine Sea, parts of which US allies the Philippines, Vietnam and
Taiwan claim but all of which China insists is part of its territory.
In April, China’s insistence of
sovereignty over the entire sea met resistance from the Philippines, which
stood its ground at Panatag Shoal (Scarbourough Shoal), a reef within
Philippine territory where Chinese fishermen had been caught poaching sharks
and harvesting rare clams and corals. For two months, two Philippine vessels
faced off with Chinese ships that sought to prevent the arrest of the fishermen
until stormy weather drove the Filipinos to shelter in mid-June.
The standoff has soured relations
between the two countries, but Beijing’s proffer of a bilateral meeting between
President Aquino and Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the 20th
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders’ summit in Russia next week
was seen as a sign that China is cooperating with the Philippines in finding a
peaceful solution to the dispute.
Apec summit
The Apec leaders’ summit will be
held on Russky Island, in the Pacific Ocean off the port city of Vladivostok,
on September 8 and 9.
Foreign Undersecretary Laura del
Rosario told a press briefing in MalacaƱang on Wednesday that China had
proposed a one-on-one meeting between President Aquino and Hu and that Aquino
would accept.
Aquino leaves for Vladivostok on
September 7 to join other regional and world leaders in the summit on Russky.
He will join exchanges on trade
and liberalisation, regional economic integration, strengthening food security,
establishing reliable supply chains and cooperation to foster innovative
growth. Officials said the Philippines would present its position on each of
these issues.
The President will address the
Apec Business Advisory Council (Abac) Dialogue with Leaders, after which he
will meet with Hu and the leaders of Japan, Singapore and Chile.
Del Rosario said Aquino would not
raise the West Philippine Sea dispute in his meeting with Hu, but Hu was
expected to bring it up.
In that case, Del Rosario said
Aquino would explain to the Chinese side what the Philippines was doing to
“deescalate” tensions and maintain economic relations.
Focus on partnerships
Del Rosario said the meeting had
not yet been confirmed, as the Philippine and Chinese delegations were still
preparing their schedules.
But she said the Chinese side had
proposed the meeting, and Aquino would accept.
She said the Philippines wanted
to focus on boosting economic partnerships with China during the meeting, not
the West Philippine Sea dispute.
Aimed at fighting transnational
crime, Thursday’s US activity in Palawan should not derail the Russky meeting.
Joint naval patrols
The US Embassy in Manila said the
donation was part of continuing US$9-million (380-million peso) US support to
the SBU programme, which was established in 2010 through a partnership between
the PNP and the US Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative
Training Assistance Programme.
“This partnership has greatly
increased the capabilities of the Philippine authorities to confront
long-standing transnational organised criminal activity,” Thomas said in a
statement.
The new equipment will also be
useful should the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia approve joint patrols of
their sea borders to combat piracy, smuggling and the movement of
al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.
Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin
yesterday said that the proposal was discussed during his meeting earlier this
week with his Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts, who travelled to the
Philippines to visit their troops involved in efforts to strengthen a ceasefire
between the Philippine military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Gazmin said the three countries
would study the proposed joint naval patrols, along with real-time information
exchanges and rapid-response arrangements to deal with emergencies at sea and
cross-border crimes.
First proposed in 2006 as a
“modern police unit fully capable of enforcing maritime law,” the PNP SBU in
Palawan has seized contraband worth $1.1 million, or nearly 50 million pesos,
made 200 arrests at sea and accosted 17 vessels.
The arrests were related to
cigarette and fuel smuggling, illegal drugs and weapons, illegal fishing and
poaching of protected marine resources.
Illegal fishing and poaching are
problems involving Chinese fishermen, but if the talks between Aquino and Hu
are successful, Manila can expect an easing of these causes of friction with
Beijing.
With reports from TJ Burgonio, AP
and AFP
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