Loud protests in US cities hit China’s ‘aggression’

SAN FRANCISCO–Some 500 members of the Filipino and Vietnamese American communities staged a protest rally in front of the Chinese consulate in San Francisco Wednesday (Thursday Manila time).

Seven Filipino World War 2 veterans chained themselves to the entrance of the consulate. No arrests were made.

A large contingent of Vietnamese protesters chanted continuously, demanding that China get out of Vietnam and the Philippines. Vietnamese war veterans ripped and trampled on the Chinese flags.

This was one of the biggest joint rallies by communities from the two Asean neighbors ever since Chinese expansionism in Southeast Asia became the geopolitical issue that it is now.

“They are here to defend the Philippines’ and Vietnam’s sovereignty against Chinese aggression,” said Rudy Asercion, commissioner of the Veterans War Memorial Commission. The rally dispersed peacefully.

Filipinos in major cities in the US and other countries gathered in front of Chinese embassies and consulates to rally against “Chinese aggression in the West Philippine seas.”

The US Pinoys for Good Governance (USPGG), organized the protests. The group strongly supported the candidacy of President Benigno Aquino III in 2010. The protests marked one year after China created the Sansha Prefecture, which administers several island groups in the disputed South China Sea.

In New York City, Filipino activists demonstrated in front of the United Nations headquarters to denounce China’s “aggression and continued occupation” of Philippine territory.

“We are here at the United Nations so that they will declare that China has no basis in international Law,” said USPGG president Loida Nicolas Lewis. Protesters came as from as far away as Connecticut and Boston.

In Washington, DC, Celestino Almeda, 96, Filipino American WWII veteran held up a map with China’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone under the United Nation’s Convention of Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS) cut away from the West Philippine Sea and Vietnam Sea. The protest rally was held in front of the Embassy of China.

Likewise, Trinh Nguyen-Mau, co-chair of the Vietnamese Community of DC-Maryland-Virginia pointed out to the news media the 200-mile exclusive economic zones of Vietnam on the map with the West Philippine Sea and the South China Sea.