{"id":10587,"date":"2014-05-17T00:53:26","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T16:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=10587"},"modified":"2014-05-17T00:53:41","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T16:53:41","slug":"filipino-vietnamese-protesters-demand-china-leave-south-china-sea-areas-their-countries-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/05\/17\/filipino-vietnamese-protesters-demand-china-leave-south-china-sea-areas-their-countries-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Filipino, Vietnamese protesters demand China leave South China Sea areas their countries claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"disputed-south-china-sea-ma\"<\/a><\/p>\n

MANILA,\u00a0Philippines\u2014Filipinos and Vietnamese residents in the\u00a0Philippine\u00a0capital staged a joint protest Friday against China\u2019s incursions into South China Sea territories claimed by their countries.<\/p>\n

Chanting \u201cChina get out,\u201d more than 100 Filipinos and Vietnamese picketed the Chinese consulate carrying banners, including one that urged Manila and Hanoi to \u201cjoin hands\u201d against Beijing.<\/p>\n

China claims virtually the entire South China Sea, a busy sea lane and fishing ground atop what is believed to be rich oil and gas reserves.<\/p>\n

Chinese and Vietnamese ships have been locked in a standoff since early this month after Beijing deployed an oil rig near the Paracel Islands claimed by Hanoi. Anti-China protests in Vietnam have turned violent, killing at least one Chinese worker at a Taiwanese steel mill.<\/p>\n

Manila has also protested Chinese land reclamation on a reef that it says is\u00a0Philippine\u00a0territory.<\/p>\n

Philippine\u00a0Congressman Walden Bello said the protesters were denouncing Beijing\u2019s moves as provocative. \u201cThis protest is all about telling China, \u2018Please stop your aggressive moves in our territories. Please respect the rule of international law,\u201d\u2018 he said.<\/p>\n

Bello also accused China of allowing its fishermen to catch and butcher endangered turtles in\u00a0Philippine\u00a0waters.\u00a0Philippine\u00a0police charged nine Chinese fishermen who were apprehended last week for catching more than 500 turtles near a reef claimed by Manila.<\/p>\n

This week, the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0said China has reclaimed land on the Johnson South Reef in violation of a 2002 nonbinding agreement to not occupy uninhabited areas in the disputed waters.<\/p>\n

Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Charles Jose said Friday that turning the reef into an island in effect shrinks the\u00a0Philippines\u2019 territorial claim. Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, the maritime entitlement for a rock is 12 nautical miles while it is 200 nautical miles for an island.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Philippines\u00a0said the change jeopardizes Manila\u2019s international arbitration case, which primarily seeks clarification on maritime jurisdiction and entitlements.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you will change the character or nature of that feature, from a rock to an island, of course, the maritime entitlement will become different, it will be bigger,\u201d Jose said. \u201cSo our area shrinks, so we are jeopardized.\u201d Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said Wednesday the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0lodged the protest last month after surveillance aircraft confirmed and took pictures of the reclamation and dredging by Chinese vessels at the reef.<\/p>\n

Del Rosario said it was not clear what China would build on the reef, which Manila claims as part of its western province of Palawan, but that one possibility was an airstrip. A senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the issue, said China could also build an offshore military and resupply and refuelling hub.<\/p>\n

China has insisted the area is its territory and work there is covered by Chinese sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Teresa Cerojano contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA,\u00a0Philippines\u2014Filipinos and Vietnamese residents in the\u00a0Philippine\u00a0capital staged a joint protest Friday against China\u2019s incursions into South China Sea territories claimed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":5847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news-ph","mauthors-oliver-teves","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}