A step forward

THINGS seem to be looking up for PH-China relations — at least, in terms of trade and investment.
President Aquino’s state visit to China seems to be yielding positive results on the business aspect for the Philippines, and seems to have moved a step forward on the territorial dispute between China and the Philippines over the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea.
While PNoy clarified earlier that the territorial dispute will not be his foremost agenda during his visit, the two nations could not help but tackle the proverbial pebble in their shoe.
On Wednesday, in a bilateral meeting with China’s President Hu Jintao, PNoy expressed his wish of settling the dispute with “a regional solution.”
According to presidential spokersperson Edwin Lacierda, it was PNoy who initiated the discussion on the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea territorial dispute. PNoy made clear the position of the Philippine government on the situation, since the territorial dispute “was a regional problem that required a regional solution,” and that this is so “because of the various claimants in the disputes.”
Hu responded by reiterating that the Chinese are all for a peaceful resolution. He encouraged that the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea become “a sea of friendship, peace and cooperation.”
Hu also stated his wish for a more binding Code of Conduct in the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea dispute, so tension between the two countries will be alleviated.
“At least, that adherence to the Declaration of the Code of Conduct – they actually even responded that there should be an implementing agreement already for the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea or the West Philippine Sea. So that is very significant because before, it was a general statement of principles. Now, there’s a desire to really put in the implementing rules and regulations,” PNoy said late Wednesday.
PNoy said that pushing for a Code would go beyond being just “a statement of principles.” A binding agreement would be set, with rules and regulations implemented.
Currently, China wants to settle the dispute through bilateral means with each claimant country, but the Philippines is more inclined to take on a multilateral approach.
China and other claimant countries have agreed to “adopt implementing guidelines for the 2002 Declaration of the Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea.”
“Our positions previous to this were really so disparate. They were too far apart. But in this particular instance, there was that adherence to peaceful means, getting our people to talk together fully to come to a common framework of resolving the issue. We did present… again, there were no objections to what we presented and in the same token, they responded – I won’t say that they agreed with our positions but it is not the same situation wherein both of us stayed so strongly in the sense that we have very widely variant positions,” PNoy said.
“I cannot say that we have agreed on our views but they will not remain too far apart,” PNoy added.
A month ago, foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China gathered in Bali, Indonesia to discuss and adopt implementing guidelines for the DOC, “a move that was a step away from the development of a Code of Conduct.”
According to DFA Secretary Albert del Rosario, the Philippines made a proposal to have an ASEAN-China Zone of Peace, Freedom, Friendship and Cooperation in the West Philippine Sea, including Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands.
Areas of dispute will be “enclaved and designated as a Joint Cooperation Area,” which will be under the authority of a Joint Permanent Working Committee — a group composed of claimants from ASEAN.
However, according to Del Rosario, there is no clear distinction between the disputed and undisputed areas and that “could affect implementation of confidence-building measures in the conduct of marine research and marine environmental protection.”
While the territorial dispute is still open-ended at this point, PNoy’s trip still brought a bevy of concrete investments and more for the Philippines.
“Basically, we talked about issues, the ideas of investments, promoting more investments in the country. The President encouraged the Chinese side to invest more and the Chinese side also said they are willing to invest more in the Philippines and hopefully they can push with the $60-billion investment by 2016,” Lacierda said.
The congenial atmosphere has even forged an agreement between the two leaders — declaring 2012-2013 as the year of Philippine friendship.
It also led to a five-year development program for trade and economic cooperation, which is expected to generate $60 billion in bilateral trade by 2016 and the signing of several agreements which include: a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (CMFA) on strengthening cooperation; A cooperation agreement between People’s Television Network Inc. (PTN) and China Central Television (CCTV); an MOU on the assignment of an investment officer who will promote the Philippines to Chinese investors; an MOU between the Presidential Communications and Operations Office and the State Council Information Office; an MOU on sports cooperation between the two countries’ sports agencies; and a program implementing the MOU on tourism cooperation.
The MOU’s made between Philippines and China also recognized the various areas that can enhance cooperation and exchanges between the two countries: frequent contacts between the foreign ministers, regular consultations at various levels, exchanges of publications and cooperation on organizing and conducting training programs, and cooperation in consular affairs.
With all that’s been said and done, hopefully the outcome of PNoy’s visit to China will move both countries forward to an amenable resolution which hopefully, would put the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea snafu to rest.
And while nothing has been carved in stone in terms of concrete resolutions, Filipinos across the globe are crossing their fingers that this would not turn out to be just another ambiguous act of diplomacy.
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend Sept 3-6, 2011 Sec A  pg. 12)