Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said Monday the Philippines objected to efforts to block Western powers, including the United States, from having access to the hotly contested South China Sea under a Code of Conduct being formulated by China and Southeast Asian states.
"Here is the non-negotiable: The COC will never exclude a Western power, well the United States, from the area because that's part of our national defense, it's the MDT," Locsin said, in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.
Locsin was referring to the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the Philippines and the United States that binds America to defend its long-time Asian ally from external attack.
Even US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to defend the Philippines against any armed attack in the South China Sea amid China's new law authorizing its coast guard to shoot foreign vessels in the disputed waters it claims nearly in its entirety.
Locsin said America's continuing presence in the South China Sea would ensure "balance of power" in the region.
"To begin with, there is the freedom of open seas," he said.
In August 2018, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China agreed to a single draft of the code of conduct or COC, with an agreement reached in November 2018 for both sides to finalize the document within three years, starting from 2019.
The Philippines, which is committed to having a code of conduct, currently heads the code of conduct talks as country coordinator for ASEAN and China.
The Code of Conduct in the South China Sea aims to prevent conflicting territorial claims in the vast potentially-oil rich region from erupting into a full-blown confrontation or worse, an economically devastating major conflict.
"We are to the fullest extent, we're gonna push for the COC," Locsin emphasized.
Locsin added that the Philippines is working to reduce the draft document to eight pages before it steps down as country coordinator this year.
But China, which considers the sea disputes a purely Asian issue, is opposed to any foreign intervention, particularly from the US.
The US and China are at odds over the maritime dispute in the strategic waters, where Beijing has turned several former reefs into artificial islands with military facilities, runways, and surface to air missiles.
While the US is not a party to the disputes, it has declared that it is in its national interest to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight in the contested waters where China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan have overlapping claims.
Meanwhile, Locsin rejected on Monday a proposal for the Philippines to file a protest against China's new coast guard law before the United Nations.
Locsin was reacting to retired Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio’s proposal that the Philippines and other Southeast Asian Countries should ask a UN tribunal to declare it as void under international laws.
"No. Everybody wants to enter a show. Everybody wants to show up at the United Nations. Well, I’m not going to go back there because the Coast Guard Law has some claims as to the extent of their territory. That will reopen the arbitral ruling and I’m not going to give them a chance to do that," Locsin told ANC.
"Chinese diplomacy has been very effective in most of the members of the United Nations and I’m not going to throw our victory to that and let them decide," the Foreign Secretary stressed.
This prompted the Department of Foreign Affairs to file a diplomatic protest against the law, which lets its coast guard fire on foreign vessels.
Locsin bewailed that enacting the Coast Guard Law "is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies the law, which, if unchallenged, is submission to it."
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the new law in China allowing the China Coast Guard to shoot at foreign vessels in disputed waters, including Manila-claimed West Philippine Sea, could result in an open conflict.
“I'm very concerned about this law because it might cause miscalculations and accidents there especially that they are now allowed to fire at foreign vessels,” Lorenzana said in an interview on CNN Philippines.
“The Coast Guard of the Chinese are patrolling the disputed area, the same as our Coast Guard and Navy ships, so the chance of accident and miscalculation is great…It might cause an open conflict,” he added.
China's new law allows its forces to “take all necessary measures, including the use of weapons when national sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction are being illegally infringed upon by foreign organizations or individuals at sea.”
Lorenzana said the Philippines would consult with its allies on how to handle the situation with the new law as the US and other claimants continued to patrol the disputed waters.
Despite the new law, Lorenzana encouraged Filipino fishers to keep on fishing in their “traditional” fishing areas in the disputed territory.
He clarified that fisherfolk were not the concern of China’s new law but only armed foreign vessels.
Fishers group Pamalakaya earlier vowed to oppose the new law that allowed the China Coast Guard to shoot at foreign vessels in disputed waters.
Meanwhile, Japan said Monday it had protested to China over two incursions into Japanese territorial waters that occurred after Beijing enacted legislation toughening its response to violations of its maritime territory.
Japan and China dispute ownership of the uninhabited islets in the East China Sea that Tokyo calls the Senkakus and Beijing the Diaoyu.
The rocky islets are administered by Tokyo, which has regularly protested what it calls the violation of its territory by Chinese vessels.
The latest row comes amid heightened tensions after China enacted legislation allowing its coast guard to use weapons against foreign ships that Beijing sees as illegally entering its waters.
Japanese government spokesman Katsunobu Kato said Tokyo had protested after two Chinese coast guard ships entered waters off the Senkaku islands on Saturday and Sunday
"We made a strong protest through diplomatic routes both in Tokyo and Beijing, strongly demanding that they immediately stop their moves to try to approach Japanese fishing vessels and that they swiftly leave the territorial waters," Kato said.
He said Japan's coast guard ships "repeatedly demanded they leave while ensuring the safety of fishing vessels".
"Japan can never tolerate" such moves, Kato added.
Chinese coast guard vessels have regularly been sent around the disputed islands, especially under the leadership of President Xi Jinping who wants to make the country a maritime power.
Last year, Chinese ships were confirmed in the contiguous zone of the islets for a total of 333 days, an all-time high.
Aside from the territorial row with Japan, Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea despite competing partial claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
It has ignored a 2016 international tribunal ruling that declared its assertion as without basis.
Analysts say China's communist rulers are making waves in the Pacific as they extend their naval strength and reach while Japan and the Philippines bolster their own fleets, increasing the risk of a maritime conflict. With AFP