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Friday, March 29, 2024

Rody eyes Chinese patrols

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PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has asked China to conduct patrols in Southeast Asian waters to fight piracy and other cross-border criminal activities.

“I asked China if they can patrol international waters without necessarily intruding into [a country’s] territorial waters,” Duterte told newly promoted military officials at a reception in Malacañang.

Duterte made the proposal after an unidentified special emissary from Indonesia arrived Monday night to discuss the recent kidnapping of three Indonesian fishermen by the Abu Sayyaf Group.

“I just reminded them that we have this agreement, we have this understanding. [We need to] put it into practice,” Duterte said, referring to the Philippines’ agreement with Indonesia and Malaysia over maritime border patrols.

Duterte said Chinese presence was helpful in the waters off Somalia to help prevent kidnapping and piracy in those shipping lanes.

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“We would be glad if they have their presence there. [Even with only a] coast guard cutter, just to patrol. Like what they did in Somalia. They helped. Somalia has toned down. But in the Malacca Strait, even in the Sulu Sea. It remains to be a big problem,” Duterte said.

The Philippines and China are in a dispute due to claims in the South China Sea or West Philippine Sea.

The Philippines, seeking to improve relations with China, hopes a long-delayed framework for a Code of Conduct in the disputed South China Sea will be completed by the middle of this year, said Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay. 

Yasay said the code would help de-escalate tension in the waters, where China has started militarizing artificial islands built after the Philippines filed and won an arbitration case against Beijing in The Hague.

Yasay said the Philippines, as chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this year, will intensify efforts to fast-track the discussions on the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and eventually complete the COC.

In fact, discreet discussions are currently under way and China has been “very cooperative” in the process, he said.

“The formulation of the COC is precisely being discussed right now. I don’t want to preempt anything by revealing further information but I hope that it will be achieved by mid-2017,” Yasay said. “There is now a convergence of national interest to come up with the COC and we are fortunate to have gotten to this level.”

The COC has been in the works since 2002 but “intervening events,” as Yasay called them, prompted years of delays and prevented it from moving forward.

He said that the COC might “open the door to speed up bilateral engagement” with China to eventually enforce the ruling of an international arbitral tribunal in the disputed waters.

The framework, Yasay disclosed, will include key elements and principles for the legally binding COC.

“I hate to think a party not to be bound by it or deviate from it. I’m sure that they will be bound by it,” he said, pointing out that the COC should be agreed by all the parties unanimously.

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