China: US-RP rotational talks to ‘challenge peace’

From the Daily Tribune (Aug 11): China: US-RP rotational talks to ‘challenge peace’

China sharply criticized the government of President Aquino after Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said the other day talks with Washington would start soon on the proposed US military’s “increased rotational presence” while at the same time writing the two chambers of Congress seeking permission to start negotiations.

China’s official mouthpiece China Daily said the “move could challenge favorable atmosphere for peace in Asia-Pacific.”

House leaders, meanwhile, said that they need to fully review the letter from the Department of National Defense (DND) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and indicated that the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) may need updating.

The joint letter signed by Gazmin and Del Rosario said more American troops in the country can shield us against possible aggression, particularly in Philippine territory at the West Philippine Sea.

The two Cabinet secretaries stressed that the presence of US troops will help the country attain a “minimum credible defense” to guard our territory as the Philippines boosts its own military.

“The Philippines will shortly enter into consultations and negotiations with the United States on a possible framework agreement that would implement our agreed policy of increased rotational presence,” Gazmin and Del Rosario stated in their letter to Congress.

In an article quoting various Chinese experts, the newspaper said the new development could also “harm Washington’s interests.

“The Philippines should give up its vain hope that the United States will allow whatever it wants to safeguard its claims in the South China Sea, although Washington always tries to keep tension in the region to a certain degree,” the newspaper said.

“More military presence from the US, an outside power, will bring more uncertainties in the South China Sea and harm Washington’s own economic interests in the region,” the newspaper quoted Wang Fan, a professor of international affairs at China Foreign Affairs University.

“The US will not allow the Philippines to do whatever it wants to do with its territorial disputes with China at the cost of general stability in the Asia-Pacific region,” Wang was quoted as saying.

“The US is willing to keep the tension in the South China Sea at a certain degree,” Li Guoqiang, deputy director of the Center for Chinese Borderland History and Geography at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said according to China Daily.

“The tension offers a good excuse for Washington to deploy more military forces to the Asia-Pacific region under its Asia rebalancing strategy, given that some regional countries may ask the US for help to cope with territorial disputes,” he said.

Manila has long been seeking to upgrade its military and draw military powers outside the region to get involved in the South China Sea issue, in a bid to strengthen its hand to bargain with China on the dispute in the future, said Li.

Although the US has not confirmed Manila’s statements, it has repeatedly insisted that it would not take sides in the disputes in the South China Sea, but it has continually offered support to the Philippines by helping the country upgrade its military capacity.

“The reason is Washington hopes to make use of the South China Sea issue to sustain its dominance in Asia Pacific”, said Wang.

The three House leaders, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., Senior Deputy Speaker Giorgidi Aggabao and Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, said they need to deeply study the request, a sensitive matter which “needs close scrutiny because we need to balance our position.”

Gonzales said that a review of the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) is needed before they can act on the letter request and they need more opinion to study all its pros and cons.

Aside from this, Gonzales said the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States also needs to be reviewed before making any bold move.

Aggabao added the House must revisit first the MDT to make very certain that any aggression against the Philippines would automatically trigger an immediate response from the US forces.

He added a deeper study is needed to avoid moves that may agitate our neighbors.
“It needs more burning of eyebrows before making final decisions on the letter request. This is no joke,” Agabao said.

Speaking to the press last Thursday, Del Rosario said about the planned negotiations: “We’re trying to do it as soon as we can, as early as we can.

“I think if we’re talking about access we need to discuss the modalities and parameters,” he added.

Several hundred US Special Forces troops have been on short term deployments in the southern Philippines since 2002 to help train local troops fighting Islamic militants.

“If and when there is agreement on the access, then there will be equipment coming in from the (United) States,” Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said on June 27.

“Modalities for the increased rotational presence are right now being examined. One modality is the conduct of high-value, high-impact exercises,” Gazmin said, without elaborating.

Gazmin, however, emphasized the plan would not see any new bases or a permanent US presence in the Philippines.

The United States had tens of thousands of troops stationed in the Philippines, at the Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base north of Manila, until the early 1990s.

The United States, a former colonial ruler of the Philippines, was forced to abandon the bases amid anti-US sentiment and a row over rent. The constitution now bans any permanent foreign bases in the Philippines.

However Clark and Subic, now partly converted to business use, still host and service US military aircraft and warships on short-term exercises.

China claims most of the South China Sea including waters close to the shores of its neighbours including the Philippines.

Last year China seized control of Scarborough Shoal, about 230 kilometers (140 miles) off the coast of the main Philippine island of Luzon, after the Filipino navy backed down from a lengthy stand-off.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), meanwhile, said plans of the Obama government to increase US military aid from $30 million to $50 million military assistance to the Philippines is tied with pushing Aquino  to forge an agreement with the US allowing greater US military access to its former military port facilities, especially in Subic and other former US military bases starting next year.

“Heightened US military aid to the Philippines, which mostly takes the form of providing decommissioned war materiél, is also Obama’s reward to Aquino who has exhibited unquestioning servility to the US,” said the CPP.

The CPP said the US military has been maintaining an exclusive military base within the AFP Western Mindanao Command headquarters in Camp Navarro in Zamboanga City.

Even Filipino officers are banned from the area reserved for the 700-strong Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTFP).

Under the Aquino administration, Philippine sovereignty has depreciated several folds, said the CPP.

“The Aquino regime has blindly allowed the US military to make use of the Philippines as a base of its operations in its declared aim of deploying more than half of its overseas military strength into the Asia-Pacific region,” the CPP said in a statement.

“The permanent and increasing presence of the US military in the Philippines has provoked China to become more aggressive and has worsened diplomatic tensions among the various claimants of disputed territory in the South China Sea,” the CPP said.

The CPP said violations of Philippine sovereingty are bound to worsen with the new access agreement effectively granting the US basing rights in the Philippines.

“Increased military aid to the Philippines will also result in worsening violations of human rights abuses committed by the reactionary armed forces in the conduct of its US-designed Oplan Bayanihan war of suppression,” the CPP said.

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