South China Sea: It takes two to tangle

GOTCHA 

By Jarius Bondoc
The Philippine Star

A congressional ally says that former President Gloria Arroyo’s parathyroid disease is worsening her cervical spine ailment. Symptoms of parathyroid: chronic fatigue, depression, osteoporosis and osteopenia, sleeplessness, bone ache, irritability, forgetfulness, gastric acid reflux, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, thinning hair, kidney stones, recurrent headaches.

* * *

Chief Justice Renato Corona told reporters that the case of PAL’s retrenched flight attendants was first assigned to him in 2008, but he inhibited himself. Presumably he continued to do so when the en banc took back Friday a “final” order of last month to reinstate the employees. The recall was made because of a technicality. Allegedly the wrong division issued the ruling, due to inadvertence of the ponente or decision author. But lawyers are asking if there really was such oversight. And if so, why wasn’t it pointed out while the supposedly wrong division was still discussing the case.

* * *

In the eyes of the United States, China is a martial, economic, and environment aggressor in the South China (West Philippine) Sea. Citing ASEAN grumbles, the giant is pictured as a naval bully, oilfield intruder and marine poacher. It’s largely China’s fault, for it says one thing and does another. It proclaims non-violence in facing counterclaimants in the Spratlys, but has gunboats ramming Vietnamese seismic and Filipino fishing vessels. It proposes dialogue but unilaterally asserts ownership of the entire sea. It feigns to desire peace while rushing to build 36 warships to enforce such claim. China employs diplomatic charm, but its foreign minister is not even a member of its ruling party Politburo, while its military, energy, fisheries, oceanographic and maritime commissars are.

It takes two hands to clap, goes a Chinese adage. Maritime policy analyst Dr. Mark J. Valencia stresses that the US is half the problem in the South China Sea. The associate of the National Bureau of Asian Research in Washington says some of China’s aggressions are mere reactions to US acts. Naturally his US government is upset with him.

To Philippine Navy and Foreign Service officers yesterday Valencia recounted near clashes with China that the US incited in the past decade. Foremost was the Hainan Incident of 2001, in which a US reconnaissance plane intruded Chinese air space 70 miles off the southern island-province. The US craft collided mid-air with an intercepting Chinese fighter jet, killing the latter’s pilot and forcing the former to crash-land. Last June two Chinese jets chased away a US spy plane from the Taiwan Strait. In both incidents, observers suspect, the US was monitoring how China would react.

Then there’s the US naval vessel Bowditch that has had several run-ins with Chinese counterparts. In 2008 another US ship, the Impeccable, was shooed away from the Chinese garrison in the Paracels. The US claims that the ships were on oceanographic research. But Valencia said they’re part of a 29-ship special mission in the South China Sea. Among the reported tasks were submarine tracking.

In all incidents the US invoked freedom of navigation under a 1958 international treaty. China, on the other hand, asserted its 200-mile exclusive economic zone under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The US refuses to sign the later (1982) pact. The Philippines recently charged that China’s unilateral “nine-dash line” claim over the South China Sea was a violation of the UNCLOS.

Valencia counseled ASEAN countries to uphold their own interests and not get caught in a potential US-China crossfire. He said that through diplomacy the ASEAN can even get the two powers to stand down.

* * *

It’s the turn of Huawei, China’s largest telecoms firm (three times ZTE Corp.) to get embroiled in corruption charges. The party secretary and general manager of government-owned China Mobile in Chongqing province, and his son were indicted last week for taking 36 million yuan in bribes from Huawei.

The Chongqing office of the giant China Mobile service provider buys from Huawei 100 million yuan worth of cellular phones a year. The party boss’ son was made to look like an employee of Huawei, although he never reported for work at any time. Ericsson too might be implicated.

(See http://www.eeo.com.cn/ens/2011/1011/213176.shtml and http://www.bloom berg.com/news/2011-10-11/china-bribery-trial-cites-ericsson-huawei-payments-caixin-says.html)

* * *

Yesterday was the centenary of General Miguel Malvar, the last Katipunero of his rank to succumb to superior enemy forces during the Philippine-American War.

Malvar had led the revolution against Spain in his Batangas home-province before the American occupation. After a respite he regrouped his brigade to fight the new colonizers. The fierceness of Batangas’ resistance to US rule provoked the “re-concentration”, the enclosing and isolation of small villages, later adopted as “hamletting” during the Vietnam War.

In 1902, with thousands of Batangueños dead from famine and disease, Malvar and his family surrendered to end the US pacification campaign. He turned to farming until he passed away in 1911.

* * *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).