Eyeing China, Obama demands Congress move on key UN maritime rules

From The Daily Tribune (Jun 4): Eyeing China, Obama demands Congress move on key UN maritime rules

US President Barack Obama asked Congress to ratify contentious UN maritime rules Thursday, hoping to strengthen his hand in a dangerous stand-off with Beijing over the disputed South China Sea.

Addressing the US Air Force Academy in Colorado, Obama said  Congress should approve UN rules designed to peacefully resolve maritime disputes.

Obama’s presidency has seen escalating diplomatic and military tensions over Beijing’s claim to territory throughout the South China Sea.

The area is a vital shipping channel that is also believed to have significant energy and mineral deposits.

It is also pivotal to China’s effort to transform the focus of its navy from coastal defense to a “blue water navy” capable of projecting power across the region.

Chinese military deployments in the South China Sea have spooked neighbors who also claim islands and atolls, and set off a chain of tit-for-tat countermeasures by Washington.

Obama has ordered US navy vessels to sail across the region to affirm freedom of navigation.

The White House believes that Congress’s failure to ratify the UN agreement has undercut the US case that disputes must be solved peacefully.

“If we are truly concerned about China’s actions in the South China Sea for example, the Senate should help strengthen our case by approving the law of the sea convention,” Obama said.

Obama’s call comes at a particularly sensitive time, ahead of a landmark international panel ruling on a dispute between the Philippines and China over the Spratly Islands.

Beijing has angrily rejected the panel’s jurisdiction and vowed to ignore its ruling.

Chinese military moves key issue at Singapore forum

Asia’s largest annual security forum opens Friday in Singapore with territorial disputes in the South China Sea, North Korea’s military provocations and Islamist extremism expected to dominate discussions.

The Shangri-La Dialog, organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), is to be attended by at least 20 defense ministers led by Pentagon chief Ashton Carter, IISS Asia executive director Tim Huxley said.

Beijing’s claim to nearly the entire South China Sea has angered Southeast Asian neighbors and pitted it against the United States, which has conducted patrols near Chinese-held islands to press for freedom of navigation. The contested waters encompass key global shipping lanes.

The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam have competing claims in the area, which is believed to have significant oil and gas deposits.

“There is much speculation about China’s next steps in the South China Sea, particularly in the context of an apparently imminent ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on a Philippine submission that challenges important aspects of China’s claims and activities there,” Huxley wrote in a pre-conference blog.

Ahead of the conference launch Friday, Carter and his Singapore counterpart Ng Eng Hen flew over the busy Strait of Malacca in a demonstration flight of a US P-8 maritime patrol plane stationed in Singapore.

“The American approach is an inclusive one in which everyone participates in the collective defense of our peoples from today’s threats,” Carter said at a joint news conference after the brief flight.

“That’s the objective of the US military presence out here, and it’s been that way for decades.”

Carter did not speak out against China, but has previously condemned Beijing’s island building and last week said it risked creating a “Great Wall of self-isolation”.

Tensions in the South China Sea are expected to drive up Asia-Pacific defense spending by nearly 25 percent from 2015 to $533 billion in 2020, security think-tank IHS Jane’s wrote in a research note issued Thursday.

“By 2020, the center of gravity of the global defense spending landscape is expected to have continued its gradual shift away from the developed economies of Western Europe and North America, and toward emerging markets, particularly in Asia,” said IHS Jane’s director Paul Burton.

Past editions of the conference have been marked by heated public exchanges between US and Chinese officials.

Zhou Bu, an honorary fellow at China’s Academy of Military Science, wrote in Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper ahead of the forum that public acrimony between the two powers could mislead people into believing that “a showdown between the two giants is inevitable”.

But he said the US-China relationship is “also resilient, partly because each side can ill afford the consequence of a conflict or confrontation”.

There are over 90 dialogs and two hotlines between the two governments, as well as two militaries to make sure the relationship stays on track, Zhou said.

He noted that China will take part in a 27-nation US-led naval drill called the Rim of the Pacific Exercise — billed as the world’s largest such event — off Hawaii and California, starting in late June.    

http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/eyeing-china-obama-demands-congress-move-on-key-un-maritime-rules