PHNO-HL; NEW TACK IN CHINA DISPUTE: PNoy ORDERS TO KEEP GOVT PLANS SECRET

NEW TACK IN CHINA DISPUTE: PNoy ORDERS TO KEEP
GOVT PLANS SECRET
[PHOTO
-Foreign Secretary Albert del
Rosario]
MANILA, JULY 9, 2012 (INQUIRER) By
Norman Bordadora - New tack on dispute with
China: Just wait, Aquino to execs: Let's not telegraph our punches.
The Philippines and Japan have agreed to enhance their bilateral cooperation
on "shared regional strategic concerns," including maritime security, the
Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Sunday.
The cooperation was forged after Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario met
with his Japanese counterpart, Koichiro Gemba, and Deputy Prime Minister Katsura
Okada during the DFA head's official visit to Tokyo last week.
"The two ministers engaged in comprehensive discussions reviewing key aspects
of relations and affirmed their respective governments' commitments to advancing
the multifaceted bilateral relations on the two countries' shared values and
long history of cooperation," the DFA said in a statement.
Their discussion was focused on the refinement of political dialogue,
economic cooperation, official development assistance and business-to-business
and people-to-people ties, as well as on the furtherance of bilateral
cooperation on shared regional strategic concerns, including maritime safety and
disaster risk reduction, the DFA added.
The foreign office, however, did not provide details about the two officials'
dialogue on maritime security-related matters.
Del Rosario earlier told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that aside from the
United States, three other countries—Japan, South Korea and Australia—were
helping the Philippines establish a minimum credible defense posture to
complement its diplomatic capacity in dealing with its territorial disputes with
China in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
12 patrol boats
He disclosed that Tokyo was likely to provide the Philippine Coast Guard with
12 patrol boats.
"They're considering 10 40-meter boats on official development aid and two
larger ones as grants," Del Rosario said.
Minister Shinsuke Shimizu, head of the embassy's chancery, told the Inquirer
that Tokyo would continue to help the Coast Guard deal with its maritime safety
and law enforcement concerns.
Shimizu clarified, however, that "it is of different nature from establishing
the minimum credible defense capabilities" of the Philippines, "nor is it aimed
at addressing a specific regional situation," referring to the dispute between
Manila and Beijing regarding Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.
The diplomat noted that "since 1990, Japan has been helping the Coast Guard
in its capacity-building program."
Before Del Rosario's three-day trip to Japan, Shimizu said the DFA head would
discuss with Gemba "ways to continue Japanese government cooperation with the
Coast Guard."
"But it is cooperation for the purpose of dealing with various maritime
safety and law enforcement issues, such as piracy and search-and-rescue,"
Shimizu explained.
FROM THE MANILA
STANDARD
The President's folly By Francisco S. Tatad |
Posted on July 09, 2012 | 12:06am | 0 Comments
President Benigno Aquino III's (photo) decision to stop
talking to China through the mass media appears to be the first sane decision to
come out of Malacañang in its troublesome handling of the prolonged maritime
standoff between Philippine and Chinese vessels in Scarborough Shoal.
The decision comes a little too late, but it could be an indication that the
President has finally realized that the Scarborough problem cannot be handled
the way he had so far tried to handle it. It is important for him to remember
that his job is not to provide screaming headlines to the newspapers.
By instructing the members of his Cabinet not to telegraph the government's
moves on China, he has spared them the trouble of telling him to be discreet
himself. His spokesmen have all been uniformly disappointing, but until now the
President's spontaneity has been the real problem.
The President has provided the most surprising quotes on matters where his
best contribution would have been his absolute silence. He has led the
completely avoidable word war with unnamed spokesmen of the Chinese government.

That is neither statecraft nor diplomacy, and it has left so many men and
women of longer experience red in the face. It has not enhanced Mr. Aquino's
prestige as a head of state either. Nor has it served any verifiable national
interest.
Many are hoping the President's moratorium on his own public statements would
give him the time to study at greater depth some of the more important issues
relative to the conflict, which seem so far to have remained unnoticed.
Many are hoping he would see that the present tension is driven not just by
conflict on the ownership of the cluster of islets, reefs and rocks and waters
known as the Spratlys or Scarborough Shoal, and claimed by Malaysia, Brunei,
Vietnam, Taiwan, China and the Philippines. The territorial dispute seems merely
to provide the cover, but there seems so much more underneath.
At bottom, the real conflict appears to be primarily geopolitical. It has to
do with China's rise as a world economic and eventually political and military
power, and the apparent effort of the United States, the world's lone
superpower, to manage or slow it down.
Where the Philippines stands in that interplay of two powerful forces is what
seems to rile Beijing.
Although very few will agree that the South China Sea is an internal Chinese
lake, fewer still will deny China's legitimate desire that the area fall within
its own, rather than America's, sphere of influence.
On the other hand, the US, having been a Western Pacific power for so long,
has no desire to be dislodged from that position. China sees all this, and for
good or not so good reason sees the Aquino government as one that is eager to
support and defend the US position.
China showed no sign of alarm when Aquino ran to the US State Department and
the Pentagon to ask for a hand-me-down coast guard cutter to beef up the
Philippines' naval patrol units within its archipelagic waters. Or when the US
announced a grant of $30 million in "enhanced" military assistance to the
Philippine government.
But Beijing was visibly pissed when a Malacañang spokesman revealed that
Aquino was considering asking the US to send in a spy plane to conduct
surveillance of Scarborough and the Spratlys for the Philippines.
No more irresponsible statement could have been made by a government
official, and the President was compelled to publicly deny it. But whether or
not China believes the denial, the image of a spy plane has already entered the
picture, and this can only poison further the relations between the two
neighbors.
The spy plane first came into existence during the Cold War. It was developed
by the US as a high-altitude plane, beyond the reach of Soviet radar and
anti-aircraft fire, to collect intelligence on military installations within the
Soviet Union. It is safe to assume that its technology is even more advanced
now, and that it continues to fly regular missions for the US.
China must suspect that these planes continue to collect intelligence on its
military sites even now. That would be a fact of international political life
beyond its power to prevent or control. But for a third country to talk casually
about using a US spy plane to conduct surveillance over the South China Sea is
obviously unacceptable.
One can have no illusion that such a plane would be taking videos of Chinese
fishermen taking out giant clams and endangered sharks from the disputed waters,
and using the same video to support the environmentalist lobby that China stop
serving shark fin's soup in restaurants and private homes.
It was the height of folly that a government spokesman should mention it,
even in levity, in any on-the-record or off-the-record conversation with the
press. But together with all the bellicose statements from the President and his
spokesmen, this unverified image of a spy plane scouring the South China Sea and
beyond may have convinced Beijing that Mr. Aquino, as previously reported
elsewhere, has joined those who support the idea of building a "ring around
China," and some euro-American politicians who are eagerly pushing for war.
The spy plane story may have alarmed the Americans themselves. It is not
far-fetched to suggest that an important American source may have suggested to
Mr. Aquino to stop talking about Scarborough, and to maintain a Sphinx-like
silence instead.
Some Western analysts have suggested that the trans-Atlantic powers need a
big war to solve, among other things, the global economic recession. The
analysts suggest that if they cannot create one in the Middle East, they will
probably try to do so in Asia, and that it would be a global war against China
and Russia.
This is perhaps just one more conspiracy theory. But it may have acquired a
life of its own, and the Aquino government cannot afford to be seen as being
part of it.
Because the Philippines renounces war as an instrument of national policy, it
cannot legally go to war. Except in self-defense. But even in self-defense, it
may not have the wherewithal to wage one. All of its closest neighbors are
better armed, from the smallest, which is either Singapore or Brunei, to the
biggest, which is undoubtedly China.
To be able to stand on its own, the country needs to develop some palpable
defense capability. It will have to come up with a well-defined and coherent
defense policy, and then some military capability.
For starters, it will have to acquire at least a radar surveillance
capability to detect any intrusion into its air space and territorial waters.
Then an air force, and a navy, capable of deterring such intrusion, and dealing
with it if and when it occurs.
On land it will need an army with a capability and morale equal to its
constitutional duties and responsibilities.
For the state to go to war, for whatever reason, assuming the constitutional
bar could be overcome, it needs so much more muscle than it has got. It has
virtually nothing now.
Under a previous administration, several billions of pesos meant for military
modernization simply disappeared and has remained unaccounted for until now.

And while the government is eager to participate in the eurozone bailout and
be called a creditor nation by lending $1 billion to the IMF, it cannot seem to
add so much more to the $30 million in "enhanced" military assistance from the
US—which is not quite half of Congressman-boxer Manny Pacquiao's earnings from
the ring—for its defense program.
That is a grave handicap, indeed, but the graver problem is political. The
government seems to be run by political charismatics who seem to have no sense
at all of when to shoot and when to keep their powder dry.



Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2012 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
All
rights reserved




PHILIPPINE
HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE [PHNO] WEBSITE


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