Generally speaking, Spratly Islands is being quarreled by China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam and Philippines. And, among these six neighboring countries, it is obvious that China has the biggest edge among the claimant countries. Because China has the strongest defense mechanism as well as most huge land acquisition and biggest population. This ever long China’s territorial spat with its Southeast Asian neighboring countries over islands in the South China Sea is seemingly an endless geographical issue that I believe there is no need to use arms or guns to settle it; but instead a diplomatic talk with China government. Currently, there are a lot of political issues hovering around about the incident happened in the Red Bank. It is an incident happened to the Philippine seismic surveillance ship owned by the Department of Energy (DOE) of the Philippine government. The Department of Energy’s vessel is reportedly conducting a maritime research and allegedly harassed by two Chinese Navy gun vessels. The Armed Forces Western Command (WESTCOM) commander Lieutenant General Juancho Sabban testified that the incident occurred 250 kilometers west of Palawan which is absolutely within the Philippine territory. The recent incident has been brought already to the China government by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III. And, everybody is hoping for the best outcome of this diplomatic protest.
The sad thing is, we know very well that Filipinos never go beyond their territorial boundaries, but why it seems that China seems to try to intimidate Philippines? Everybody knows that China has a massive control on oil resources in the Spratly islands in the South China Sea. At the same time, it has a tremendous defense capability to declare war to its neighboring Asian countries over the Spratly islands. Since the Philippines lacks of military equipment and resources to combat off China’s “provoking tactics” over the Spratly Islands; the Filipinos can not even know if China has already gone to Philippine airspace because the Philippine government does not have solid military capability to detect whatever plans China has. Indeed, there is an international relationship rule that each country has to protect… and that is the self interest of every neighboring Asian country. In this connection, even the giant country like United States of America has its own economic interest to protect in its relationship with China. So, there is a strong possibility that if China will take over oil and mineral resources under the South China Sea; the country will become a giant superpower country in the whole world. But, of course, this scenario will not be certainly allowed to happen by USA and Western Europe countries.
Likewise, I personally believe that any foreign issue regarding Spratly Islands claim must not be given stress here. What more important is to maintain the peace and stability of our international relationships with China. If ever there is really a dispute between Philippine and China over the islands in the South China Sea; I am optimistic that this will be settled by peaceful bilateral negotiations. In this regard, the China’s Ambassador Mr. Sun also positive that whatever happened recently between the Philippine government authorities and China’s military men will not affect on the international communication and relationship between Philippine and China at present. Nevertheless, China has been full support in evacuating huge number of Filipino overseas workers in Libya back to the Philippines. In addition to that, the China government helped tremendously also with the transportation of thousands of evacuees in Libya going back to their different countries such as Greece, Italy, Poland, Bangladesh and Vietnam. However, China seems using all these circumstances to claim that their government has been playing a very friendly and supportive role to its neighboring countries in times of turmoil. Therefore, it may be appropriate not to think at this time about the Spratly Islands issue. And, it is best for everyone to wish that both Philippine and China government would come up with a lasting diplomatic solution over Spratly Island conflicts. The Philippine government is truly vigilant now to ensure the rights of the Filipinos and the country to protect its territorial boundary from any attempt of territorial abuse and harassment. With this in mind, the Philippine government still wants to bring the issue to the China government for peaceful negotiations regarding the untoward incident happened recently. The Philippine government only wants to ask China’s explanation on the incident that happened in the Red Bank which is still in the Philippine territory. And I also believe that it has nothing to do with other international issues between Philippines and China.
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