Aquino: We can fight back vs any threat
Faced with territorial disputes and worries of external and internal threats, President Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday claimed that the Philippines can fight back and defend itself within its bounds.
Faced with territorial disputes and worries of external and internal threats, President Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday claimed that the Philippines can fight back and defend itself within its bounds.
The Philippines has formally protested the “provocative and illegal” presence of Chinese government ships around a shoal within the Philippine continental shelf in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), asserting exclusive rights to use resources within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The Philippines reiterated, on Thursday, its commitment to the peaceful settlement of its claims in the West Philippine Sea or the South China Sea area through arbitration proceedings under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS.
The Philippines’ arbitration case against China has moved a step forward after the president of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (Itlos) appointed the second member of the ad hoc tribunal that would deliberate on the country’s bid to stop Chinese incursions into the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) expressed on Tuesday its support for Brunei’s move to pursue a code of conduct among claimants to the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) as the sultanate assumed the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) this January.
Benigno Aquino III has expressed the view that a stronger Japan would be a counterweight to the “threatening’’ presence of China in the West Philippine Sea, foreign affairs officials said on Thursday, at the close of a two-day visit by Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.
The Philippines is being cautious about Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing’s declaration of Beijing’s openness to a joint exploration in the contested West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), a statement recently reiterated by China’s Foreign Ministry in asserting its commitment to a peaceful resolution to the maritime dispute.
The Philippines may have to wait until April next year to deploy its second warship, even as tensions triggered by conflicting ownership claims over islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) are expected to escalate.
China is “literally testing the waters” to see how far it can go in provoking America’s tolerance with the plan to board foreign ships as an act of asserting its claim over virtually the entire South China Sea.
Even as the furor over its release of new electronic passports bearing a controversial map of China has yet to dissipate, Beijing has gone on to release an official map of Sansha City, the new administrative domain it created in the disputed West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) earlier this year to international outcry.
Leaders of Asian political parties have drafted a declaration calling on the US, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to convert the disputed South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) from a “zone of conflict into a zone of peace.”
Territorial rows with China should bring the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) closer together than pull them apart, Asean secretary general Surin Pitsuwan said on Sunday
