Beijing ‘will not budge’ despite US, Philippine actions in S China Sea

[chahlley]

(Hot News Today • Saturday 9 July 2016)

Chinese Anti-Ship Missiles Deployed on Contested Islands: Pentagon

Beijing ‘will not budge’ despite US, Philippine actions in S China Sea

The Philippines says it is willing to share natural resources in area with China

We can even have the objective of seeing how we can jointly explore this territory.

How we can utilise and benefit mutually from the utilisation of the resources

in this exclusive economic zone where claims are overlapping.

Mr Perfecto Yasay Philippines Foreign Secretary

BEIJING/WASHINGTON — Beijing will not take a “single step back” in the contested South China Sea, state-run media said yesterday despite reports of United States naval patrols close to its artificial islands days ahead of a tribunal ruling on China’s claims in the disputed waterway.

At the same time, a senior Pentagon official said early yesterday that China has deployed anti-ship cruise missiles on land it claims in the South China Sea.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague is set to release its final decision on the case, which was brought by the Philippines challenging China’s position in the South China Sea, on Tuesday.

In an editorial yesterday, the Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling Communist Party, said: “If the US and the Philippines act on impulse and carry out flagrant provocation, China will not take a single step back.”

It could turn Scarborough Shoal — an islet it wrested from Philippine control in 2012 — “into a military outpost”, it said, and “tow away or sink” an old landing craft Manila grounded on the Chinese-claimed Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratlys to “resolve the standoff once and for all”. It blamed Vietnam and the Philippines for provoking tensions by carrying out reclamation work in the area earlier.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, where about US$5 trillion (S$6.73 trillion) in shipborne trade passes every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.

Tensions between China and the US, which have been rising ahead of The Hague ruling, were heightened on Thursday with reports that US destroyers have sailed close to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, where China is conducting military drills around the Paracel Islands.

China Daily in its editorial yesterday called the court case a “farce” and the tribunal’s upcoming ruling “illegal, null and void from the outset”.

The ruling was likely to result in “increasing threats” to China, which “has to be prepared for all eventualities”, it said, adding: “This is not being alarmist, it is being realistic.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said yesterday the arbitration went against the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) and was therefore “a violation of international rule of order under the cloak of championing it”. Attempts to pressure China into accepting its outcome were “delusional” and “futile”, he told a daily news briefing.

In what is seen as a sign of trying to dial down the escalating tensions, Philippines Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay said yesterday his country was willing to share natural resources with China in the contested areas even if it wins the legal challenge.

Mr. Yasay said President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration hoped to quickly begin direct talks with China following next week’s verdict, with the negotiations to cover jointly exploiting natural gas reserves and fishing grounds within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

“We can even have the objective of seeing how we can jointly explore this territory. How we can utilise and benefit mutually from the utilisation of the resources in this exclusive economic zone where claims are overlapping,” Mr Yasay told AFP in an interview, adding that Beijing and Manila had agreed not to make any “provocative statements” following the ruling’s announcement.

Ahead of the tribunal ruling, Mr Abraham Denmark, US deputy  assistant secretary of defence for East Asia said yesterday at a congressional hearing that Beijing has deployed radar systems, anti-ship cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles and has rotated fighter jets “through features it claims” in the South China Sea.

He did not say exactly where the anti-ship missiles were deployed, but he criticised China’s “unilateral changing of the strategic landscape of the South China Sea”.

“Once completed and outfitted, these facilities will greatly improve China’s capabilities to enforce its maritime and territorial claims, and project power further from China’s shores,” he told the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces at the House Committee on Armed Services.

He said next week’s ruling could determine whether the region is ruled by law or “raw calculations of power” or “adherence to international laws and norms”.  AGENCIES