Monthly Archives: April 2014

EU Firms Help Power China’s Military Rise

BEIJING — As China boosts its military spending, rattling neighbors over territorial disputes at sea, an AFP investigation shows that European countries have approved billions in transfers of weapons and military-ready technology to the Asian giant. China’s air force relies on French-designed helicopters, while submarines and frigates involved in Beijing’s physical assertion of its claim […]

China urged: Listen to your neighbors

MANILA, Philippines – By listening to its neighbors, China can realize that they are not adversaries but “willing partners” in its quest for regional development and stability, visiting US President Barack Obama said yesterday. Asked to comment on China’s growing aggressiveness in staking its claims in the West Philippine Sea and South China Sea, Obama […]

Obama’s Asia visit shows US sees China as ‘opponent’: state media

BEIJING – A major Chinese newspaper hit out at Barack Obama on Tuesday after the US president said Washington was not seeking to counter Beijing’s influence in the Asia-Pacific. The state-run China Daily wrote in an editorial that Obama’s week-long visit to Asia, which concludes Tuesday, made it “increasingly obvious that Washington is taking Beijing […]

China’s funded partylist & communist armed rebels in the Philippines – No to US power

Communist leftist funded by china’s government in the Philippines shout for panic for the comeback of US power and access to the old US Airbase in Clark. “The US game plan is clear. Washington will scare its puppet government in Manila about the possible outbreak of war between China and the Philippines and other Spratlys […]

Miriam: PH-US deal unfair surprise on Senate

MANILA, Philippines – “I feel as if I have been slapped, or ordered to melt into the wallpaper.” Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago took strong exception to the signing of a military deal between the Philippines and the United States without Senate approval. Just hours after the ceremony, the chairperson of the Senate foreign affairs committee […]

China didn’t know where the Spratlys were

In 1933, the French flexed their colonial muscles and annexed nine of the Spratly Islands. When the news spread, the fledgling and troubled Chinese republic faced a basic problem: It didn’t know where the Spratlys were. A year earlier, the French had staked their claim to the Paracel Islands as part of their colony in […]

Three questions for Obama / What Chinese scholars say

Nations’ ties reshape through time. Each side’s expectation needs periodic reassuring. Leaders thus must restate exactly where they stand. Visiting Barack Obama reportedly will bring up today corruption and human rights issues. Noynoy Aquino is to table the strain Beijing is causing in the West Philippine (South China) Sea. Of concern to Filipinos is the […]

Why Aquino calls disputed areas ‘rocks,’ not islands

MANILA – President Benigno Aquino summarized the Philippines’ case against China when he called some of the disputed areas in the West Philippine Sea as mere “rocks” and not islands. Aquino, during his press briefing at the Palace on Monday with his US counterpart, Barack Obama, described the disputed areas as a “few rocks that […]

Philippines-China ties: What went wrong?

“IS this how the Philippines should deal with its powerhouse neighbor?” Former President Fidel V. Ramos raised this question in 2011 following conflicting reports on the dates of President Benigno S. Aquino’s state visit to China. But back then, relations between the Philippines and China were still in good shape. Hu Jintao was then the […]

New PHL, US defense cooperation to help modernize AFP — Goldberg

As the Filipino and American governments formally signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) Monday, US Ambassador Philip Goldberg said that the forging of this latest initiative will greatly aid in the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). “It (EDCA) will also support the shared goal of promoting the long term modernization […]