MALAYA EDITORIAL: A CHINESE INVASION?
MANILA, JULY 14, 2011 - (MALAYA) These are the hard truths and difficult choices we have to face squarely, not the non-existent threat of China invading these islands.'
SOLDIERS will always be soldiers, so let's not get terribly agitated over reports that some hardliners in the Chinese military are urging the Beijing leadership to teach "intruders a lesson."
The territorial claim to the Spratlys is by no stretch of the imagination of "core interest" to China in the same way that Tibet and Taiwan are. True, Chinese naval forces drove out South Vietnamese forces from the Paracels in a bloody engagement in 1974. But on the Spratlys, which is further south of the Paracels, Beijing has repeatedly expressed an openness to talks with other claimants.
On Tibet and Taiwan, no doubt should be entertained that China would use force, even ruthlessly, against any attempt to remove these provinces from its sovereignty.
"Politics in command," despite its Maoist origin, remains a fundamental state principle in China and the People's Liberation Army will march to whatever beat the communist party sets.
Instead of losing sleep over imagined fears, it would be better if the country started sorting out internal issues relating to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. For example, the Baselines Act which was passed in 2009 to meet the requirements of UNCLOS is under question before the Supreme Court.
The Baselines Act, which is based on the internationally accepted rule that territorial waters extend only up to 12 nautical miles from the shoreline, allegedly violates the Constitution because it markedly narrows the country's territory from that set down in the Treaty of Paris.
The oppositors are right, of course. The Treaty of Paris draws two straight vertical lines – one close to the tip of Palawan on the west and the other at the easternmost edge Mindanao – and extends these all the way up to the northernmost island of Batanes. In breadth, the territory under the Treaty of Paris is about 600 nautical miles. At the northernmost tip of the Batanes group of islands, the territorial waters 300 miles to the east and the same distance to the west.
As a result, the two northernmost corners of the area delineated by the Treaty of Paris extend well beyond the 200-mile exclusive economic zone declared by the Philippines. That a country's territorial waters extend beyond the EEZ is, of course, an absurdity.
We can insist that the Treaty of Paris overrides the 12-mile territorial water limit under UNCLOS as the oppositors to the Baseline Law do. But the result would be losing the privileges accompanying compliance with the UN accord, including the sovereign right to tap the resources within the 200-mile EEZ.
And who recognizes the international treaty limits delineated under the Treaty of Paris? It so happens that no sovereign state does, except Spain. Yes, even the United States is of the position that the waters beyond 12 miles off the Philippine coast are international waters on which it and the rest of the world enjoy unhampered navigational rights.
These are the hard truths and difficult choices we have to face squarely, not the non-existent threat of China invading these islands.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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