Philippines seeks US help to counter China
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/201228133621867303.htmlBangkok - The government of Philippines President Benigno Aquino may be wading into choppy diplomatic waters by turning to the United States to counter China's aggressiveness in the South China Sea, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
A protest outside the US embassy in Manila over the weekend by local leftwing and indigenous groups is an indication of what can be expected in the run-up to planned combat drills involving US and Filipino forces in the troubled waters of the South China Sea.
"The combat drills with US and Philippines marines have certainly worried many sectors here," noted Walden Bello, a first-term congressman from the Citizens' Action Party, which is part of the Aquino administration's coalition in the national legislature.
"The Philippines is unfortunately playing a dangerous game in entertaining a US military presence," he added in a telephone interview from Manila.
Giving Washington a military foothold will "convert a territorial dispute, where the Philippines has a stake, into a superpower conflict," Bello said. "We should rely on regional and multilateral mechanisms."
*** these military maneuvers cost money -- how much for this one?
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"The imminent diplomatic challenge Manila faces comes nearly a year after the Philippines government turned to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLoS) to resolve its territorial disputes.
"The Philippines has called on ASEAN to support the idea that the issue must be resolved on the basis of the rule of law, particularly UNCLoS," reveals Herman Kraft, associate professor of political science at the University of the Philippines.
"Using UNCLoS to advance its argument allows the Philippines to take the moral high ground and hopefully (win) the sympathy of the international public," he explained in an interview. "
China's push to resolve the problem bilaterally) is a non-starter for a small state dealing with a larger and more powerful state."
There is an international treaty which can help "break the deadlock between China and other countries over territorial disputes in the South China Sea," says Kumar Chitty, a former senior UN official at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a Hamburg-based judicial body created to resolve disputes between countries about the oceans and their resources. "This is how Australia and East Timor resolved their dispute," Chitty said."
Thanks for the thread, xchrom.
