Palace won’t protest Chinese naval drills

From the Manila Standard Today (Mar 27): Palace won’t protest Chinese naval drills

Malacanang said on Tuesday it would not protest the naval drills right being conducted by the Chinese Navy right at the northern backdoor near the Babuyan Islands even as Southeast Asian neighbor Vietnam complained that Chinese military vessels fired on Vietnamese fishermen in another part of the South China Sea.

“We note that the report itself says that the exercises were conducted on international waters. What is important is that the maritime zones of states are respected,” said presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte.

Valte made the remark a day after the Philippines’ arbitration plea against China before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea moved forward after the United Nations arbitration body appointed a Polish judge as the second member of the trbunal.

At the same time, Vietnam accused a Chinese vessel of firing on a Vietnamese fishing boat in a disputed area of the South China Sea and setting its cabin alight, exposing tensions in the region over rival claims to the gas-rich waters.

The Vietnamese government described the incident last Wednesday as “very serious” and lodged a formal complaint with the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi.

The fishing boat was near the Paracel islands when it was chased and shot at by an unidentified Chinese vessel, the government statement said late Monday.

It demanded China to punish those responsible and pay reparations to the fishermen whose boat was damaged. The government didn’t say if anyone was injured.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it had no immediate response to the accusation.

There have been other clashes in the waters, often related to claims of illegal fishing or violations of Chinese unilaterally imposed fishing moratoriums.

Vietnam and China each claim large parts of the South China Sea. The Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also maintain parts of the sea are theirs.

The countries have been in dispute with each other for years, but the profile of the issue has been raised in recent years because of China’s economic and military growth and the United State’s re-pivoting of its focus in the Asia Pacific.

The Paracels, which were occupied by China shortly before the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, is a particular flashpoint.

China last year incorporated the Paracels and most of its other South China Sea claims under the supervision of newly-established Sansha city-level administrative unit as its way of raising the region’s profile and increasing funds for infrastructure and economic development.

China is also boosting its fisheries and maritime surveillance patrols in the area, and also conducts missions in the South China Sea, although it has sought to keep military units out of conflict zones to avoid elevating tensions.

But Manila had contested what it calls Beijing’s “excessive” claim to the South China Sea and started an arbitration case under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea on January 21 to invalidate China’s claim of the entire South China Sea under its so-called “nine-dash claim.”

Beijing’s refusal to participate in the arbitration proceeding prompted the UN to choose an arbiter on behalf of China. ITLOS President Shunji Yanai named Polish judge Stanislaw Pawlak last week.

Stanislaw is the second judge to be named in the panel. He will join Manila’s arbiter, German judge Rudiger Wolfrum. The ITLOS president will then appoint the other three members of the tribunal upon receipt of another written request from the Philippines.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2013/03/27/palace-wont-protest-chinese-naval-drills/