GOV’T ASKS CHINA TO CLARIFY SHOAL PLAN
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson denies plan to build monitoring station Framework for code of conduct in South China Sea up for discussion in May
The Philippines said Wednesday that it has asked China to clarify its reported plans to build an environmental monitoring station on a disputed shoal.
Acting Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo told Filipino reporters in Bangkok, where President Rodrigo Duterte was visiting, that his department asked for clarification on the reported planned construction on Scarborough Shoal.
The shoal, off the northwestern Philippines, is at the heart of the territorial disputes between the countries.
“I think the President has been very clear -- we want to have a peaceful, diplomatic settlement of disputes but we will not fail to protect our national interests if necessary,” Manalo said.
Asked if a diplomatic protest will be filed, he said Manila will wait for China’s reply.
As this developed, China’s foreign ministry says the country is not building an environmental monitoring station on a disputed South China Sea shoal, apparently denying remarks made by a local official last week.
Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday that reports about the facility on Scarborough Shoal had been checked and were found to be false.
The Hainan Daily newspaper had quoted the top official in Sansha City, which administers China’s island claims, as saying that preparatory work on the station was among the government’s top priorities for 2017.
Code of conduct
Meanwhile, Manalo said he considered it a good sign that China was interested in concluding a framework for a code of conduct with 10 Southeast Asian nations that aims to peacefully manage disputes in the South China Sea.
He said there could be progress on the framework when China hosts a meeting in May.
“Now, the purpose of the code (of conduct) is to see how we can manage our disputes carefully, not to raise tensions, not to escalate tensions. And that’s the whole idea of the code. So all countries, even though we may have some disputes, we have to behave and deal with each other in a way that doesn’t lead to conflict but rather promotes cooperation,” Manalo said.
“The hope of everyone is that by the time we get to the meeting in May, the senior officials in the Asean-China DOC will be able to already have at least preliminary agreement on the framework. That’s our aim. And the Philippines is fully committed to seeing that we can get to that point,” he added.
A call for restraint
The Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), signed by all Asean members and China on November 4, 2002, aims to exercise self-restraint and prevent non-militarization within the contested waters.
Despite the DOC, tensions continue to escalate among claimants to the South China Sea.
Any construction would re-ignite concerns over Beijing’s increasingly assertive actions to cement its claims in the area, and would be in defiance of last year’s ruling by an arbitration tribunal in The Hague that invalidated China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea on historical grounds.
Chinese government ships took control of Scarborough in 2012 after a tense standoff with Philippine vessels.
China then blocked Filipinos from fishing in the shoal, which has a vast lagoon that serves as a natural storm shelter for Asian fishermen.