{"id":29605,"date":"2014-10-23T12:17:16","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T04:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=29605"},"modified":"2014-10-23T11:36:32","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T03:36:32","slug":"philippine-president-says-arbitration-is-only-peaceful-way-to-settle-sea-dispute-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/10\/23\/philippine-president-says-arbitration-is-only-peaceful-way-to-settle-sea-dispute-with-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Philippine president says arbitration is only peaceful way to settle sea dispute with China"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"President<\/a>
President Aquino expresses his views during the Coffee Meeting with the Philippine Media at the sidelines of the 24th ASEAN Summit. (From the Facebook page of Noynoy Aquino (P-Noy))<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA,\u00a0Philippines\u2014The\u00a0Philippine\u00a0president said Wednesday that the international arbitration Manila has initiated to challenge China\u2019s territorial claims in the South China Sea and a legally binding \u201cCode of Conduct\u201d are the only ways to settle the long-raging disputes peacefully.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Philippines\u00a0says that China has been intruding into its exclusive economic zone, including deploying two hydrographic ships in June near an offshore oil well inside\u00a0Philippine\u00a0waters.\u00a0PhilippinePresident Benigno Aquino III has said Manila is uncertain of the purpose of the ships\u2019 presence at the Reed Bank.<\/p>\n

Aquino said Wednesday that Chinese reclaimed land in the disputed waters, if used militarily, could be a \u201cgame changer\u201d in the future settlement of the dispute.<\/p>\n

Countries in the region and those that use the busy sea lanes that straddle the South China Sea and the disputed Spratly island chain are concerned that the conflict could erupt into violent clashes.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a forum with foreign correspondents, Aquino said the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0is seeking an internationally recognized settlement of the disputes. \u201cThis affects not just countries in the region, but countries that have to traverse this particular ocean,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Manila has filed a case with an international tribunal in The Hague challenging China\u2019s territorial claims over most of the South China Sea, but Beijing has refused to take part. The\u00a0Philippines\u00a0and some other countries in the 10-member Association of\u00a0Southeast Asian\u00a0Nations, or ASEAN, are pushing for the approval of a legally binding Code of Conduct to replace the non-binding 2002 Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond that, I don\u2019t know what else we could do,\u201d Aquino said. \u201cThe focus is to achieve a solution through peaceful means bound by international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

China has said that the\u00a0Philippines\u2019 filing of the case could damage relations between the two countries and that it would prefer to settle the dispute bilaterally.<\/p>\n

Aquino said Chinese actions in the South China Sea were \u201cnot in conformity\u201d with the 2002 agreement signed by Beijing and ASEAN calling on all claimants over parts or the whole of the regional waters not to exacerbate their dispute.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have issues about the reclamations, about rocks, in so far as rocks being turned into islands,\u201d he said, referring to Chinese land reclamations in at least three shoals claimed by both China and thePhilippines.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it a game changer? Obviously it\u2019s a game changer,\u201d he said in response to a question on whether the reclaimed land could be used to install military facilities such as an airstrip, posing a security threat to the\u00a0Philippines.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s conflicts with Vietnam and the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0have been intensifying over the past two years. The most serious confrontation was in May between Chinese and Vietnamese ships near an oil rig deployed by Beijing in waters claimed by Hanoi.<\/p>\n

Aside from China, the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0and Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also have claims in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

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

MANILA,\u00a0Philippines\u2014The\u00a0Philippine\u00a0president said Wednesday that the international arbitration Manila has initiated to challenge China\u2019s territorial claims in the South China Sea …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-ph","mauthors-oliver-teves","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29605","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=29605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}