Should Taiwan and China team up against the Phillipines? 一虎一席谈2013-05-18 两岸该不该联手严惩菲律宾？ [Tiger Talk] #RisingChina #Philippines

Greater China consensus at work?

Worth a watch to hear cross strait perspectives on dealing with the Philippines, an area of contention now turned consensus shared by both Taiwan and China.

That it runs like a public forum that airs diverse views is encouraging.

In Mandarin.

一虎一席谈2013-05-18 两岸该不该联手严惩菲律宾？(Youtube, May 18, 2013)

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Democracy, East China Sea, Government & Policy, Greater China, Ideology, Influence, International Relations, Mapping Feelings, Nationalism, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Philippines, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Territorial Disputes, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities

China will not be passive in sea disputes [Global Times] #China

To be able to give its naval muscle a good stretch close by is probably the goal of this gesture. Might as well deal its cards clearly and make intention transparent.

To top it off, there is widespread public participation across traditional and new media on this issue 24 hours a day. Internal consensus will not be hard to get. This seems one area where people and government meet somewhat dead centre. Every time I broached this topic, a common response, was to dismiss the contending nation and call them 小国 translated, small country but also to mean inferior state. On this the people and government have a common vantage point. And so do an increasing number of overseas Chinese.

However, this is a time where a ticket to zealotry can be facilitated by a prepaid Internet connection. Initial sparks of conflict may come where least expected, wherever it undermines hard power most – inability to act because of international conventions.

Will it then be willing to cross the line unilaterally? Would it have more innovative ways about this

That would then reveal if such talk of not being passive is rhetoric or indicative.

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China will not be passive in sea disputes
Op-Ed
Source – Global Times, published March 29, 2013

Chinese naval fleets recently conducted patrols on the South China Sea, reaching as far as Zengmu Reef, the southernmost part of Chinese territory. In an oath-taking ceremony on board Tuesday, the troops and officials vowed to safeguard China’s sovereignty.

Earlier this month, a Chinese vessel fired two warning signal shells into the sky to prevent illegal fishing operations by Vietnamese fishermen. Both showed China’s firm determination to insist upon its stance amid the South China Sea disputes.

Washington expressed its concerns in both cases, reinforcing its attitude that the US can interfere in the South China Sea issue any time.

Please click here to read the rest of the article at its source.

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Culture, Education, global times, Government & Policy, Influence, International Relations, Mapping Feelings, military, Modernisation, Nationalism, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Philippines, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Resources, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Territorial Disputes, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Uncategorized, Vietnam

Challenge China #PhilippineDailyInquirer #China #Philippines #SouthChinaSea

A Filipino perspective the latest update of the South China Sea flashpoint.

The big title ‘Challenge China’ can be interpreted as quite a proclamation. The Philippine Daily Inquirer is the country’s most widely read broadsheet. It has 260,000 readers. The Philippines consists of over 90 million people.

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Challenge China
Editorial
Source – Philippine Daily Inquirer, published January 28, 2013

The government’s decision to challenge China’s expansive claims to the South China Sea by invoking the arbitration provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) is both unexpected and overdue. Many simply assumed that the government’s legal option (its so-called third track of resolving the conflict in territorial and maritime claims, after political means and diplomatic measures) meant filing a case before the right court; in this case, the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, or Itlos, in Hamburg, Germany. At the same time, the clear and compelling arguments for the Philippine case fed a growing impatience for legal action; why was the Department of Foreign Affairs taking so long?

Officially, the DFA answer is that it wanted to try all other avenues for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in claims. “Having exhausted all possible initiatives, we feel the time to act is now. If we do not act now, we will be in default,” was the second item in the prepared Q & A list the DFA distributed on the day it announced the legal action. But it is no secret that the administration needed the time, not only to prepare its case, but to study its legal choices carefully.

On initial view, it seems that the government has chosen well. Lawyer Harry Roque, an expert in international law and a Socratic gadfly in Philippine politics, praised the action, in particular the framing of our case: “credit goes to the Solicitor General [Francis Jardeleza] because our submission of claims is crafted in a manner that will exclude all of China’s reservations,” he wrote in a commentary published in these pages.

What the government has done is to begin the proceedings of ad hoc arbitration (the third of four possible means of resolving disputes involving Unclos)—essentially calling on China to co-form an arbitration panel to resolve only one aspect of the dispute: claims about waters and the continental shelf. (The Unclos does not apply to conflicting claims involving islands.) As the DFA explained: “China’s nine-dash line claim encompasses practically the entire West Philippine Sea (WPS). We must challenge the unlawful claim of China under their nine-dash line in order to protect our national territory and maritime domain.”

After the DFA handed a note verbale explaining the legal action to the Chinese ambassador in Manila, the Chinese embassy predictably reiterated the official Chinese position that the conflicting claims be resolved through bilateral talks. “The Chinese side strongly holds [that] the disputes on South China Sea should be settled by parties concerned through negotiations,” an embassy statement read.

But China only insists on direct negotiations in those disputes where it sees itself as enjoying an advantage. That makes any attempt to resolve the conflict over claims subject to Beijing’s increasingly assertive exercise of its new superpower status, rather than a reasoned discourse over legal and historical evidence.

When China suffers from a disadvantage, however, multilateral dispute-resolution mechanisms become an option. In its dispute with Japan over a handful of islands in the East China Sea, which the Japanese call Senkaku and the Chinese Diaoyu, for example, Tokyo enjoys the distinct advantage of possession. To counter this advantage, Beijing filed a submission before the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (another Unclos forum) just last month seeking information “concerning the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in part of the East China Sea.”

This is the same commission that declared early last year that the massive Benham Rise (in potentially oil-rich waters to the east of Luzon) is officially a part of the Philippines.

Whether Beijing will agree, in the Philippine case, to the arbitration procedure outlined in the very Law of the Sea which anchors its submission in the Japanese dispute remains to be seen. It seems to have learned its lessons from the example of the other superpower, the United States, in dealing selectively with multilateral forums. To be sure, the arbitration provisions under the so-called Annex VII themselves allow for compulsory proceedings; Article 9 includes the principle that “Absence of a party or failure of a party to defend its case shall not constitute a bar to the proceedings.”

With this legal challenge, the issue, finally, is joined.

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Communications, Government & Policy, Influence, International Relations, military, Nationalism, Peaceful Development, Philippines, Soft Power, South China Sea, Strategy, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities

China and the map of nine dotted lines [Straits Times]

China’s behaviour toward actors in the South China Sea certainly go contrary against their peaceful development rhetoric. And it seems categorising their territorial disputes as domestic affairs has become fashionable. This comes in from Singapore’s Straits Times as we turn the pages of history with Wang Gungwu who looks at how the Chinese in a sense, did not feel the need for naval superiority in the open seas, until recently.

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China and the map of nine dotted lines
by Wang Gungwu for the Straits Times
Source – Straits Times, published July 11, 2012

THERE has been much debate about the Chinese map of the South China Sea with its nine dotted lines denoting an area where China believes it has legitimate claims. How these lines came about has been a subject of much speculation.

What is clear is that the lines marking Chinese interests were drawn after World War II when Nationalist China saw the end of Japanese naval power and watched the Western imperial powers leaving the region or being forced to decolonise. After 1949, the successor state, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), retained the map to show its territorial limits.

During the Cold War that followed, moves were made by new states in the region to register territorial claims, but the Chinese map seemed to have aroused little international interest. Far greater matters of how the world was to be divided were at stake.

Filed under: ASEAN, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Government & Policy, Influence, International Relations, Map, Mapping Feelings, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Nationalism, Peaceful Development, Philippines, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Resources, Soft Power, South China Sea, Strategy, Territorial Disputes, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, International Relations, Natural Resources, South China Sea

Beijing warns Manila over oil bid in South China Sea [Global Times]

China’s South China Sea litmus test prior to US and Philippines’ war games in March: will US intervention in the SCS be unacceptable to China this time?

Beijing fires warning salvo at Manila’s oil bid as the Global Times reports that 96.2 percent of 17,000 respondents support sanctions against foreign companies unlawfully exploring resources in waters claimed by Beijing.

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Beijing warns Manila over oil bid in South China Sea
by Yang Jingjie
Source – Global Times, published February 29, 2012

The undated photo shows a Philippine cruiser purchased from the US is patroling near a Philippine oil exploitation platform in offshore areas in the South China Sea. File Photo: cntv.cn 

Observers have urged Chinese petroleum companies to explore oil and natural gas in the South China Sea, after Manila invited foreign investors to exploit resources in waters claimed by Beijing.

They also called on authorities to show military strength in the disputed waters to deter those who “make trouble,” adding that China should not fear any power that meddles in the dispute.

According to the AP, the Philippines invited foreign investors to search for fuel deposits in 15 offshore areas in the South China Sea, including two that are claimed by China.

Filed under: ASEAN, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Government & Policy, Greater China, Influence, Infrastructure, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, Nationalism, Peaceful Development, Philippines, Politics, Resources, Soft Power, South China Sea, Strategy, Territorial Disputes, The Chinese Identity, U.S.