{"id":64183,"date":"2015-11-04T04:05:31","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T10:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=64183"},"modified":"2015-11-04T04:05:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T10:05:31","slug":"us-commitment-to-defend-ph-remains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/11\/04\/us-commitment-to-defend-ph-remains\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018US commitment to defend PH remains\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"US<\/a>
US Department of Defense logo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and his US counterpart Ash Carter talked about \u2018regional security issues,\u2019 including the Spratly Islands dispute on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Ministers\u2019 Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) held in Malaysia.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecretary Carter welcomed the opportunity to discuss regional security issues with one of our closest allies in the Asia Pacific and stressed that the US commitment to defend the Philippines is ironclad,\u201d Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Gazmin, for his part, welcomed the recent US naval maneuver in the contested region and acknowledged the \u2018closer cooperation with the US in Philippine force modernization efforts.\u2019<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a \u2018joint statement\u2019 at the end of the ASEAN forum was dropped. Officials who hosted the meeting have not yet released a statement over the cancellation but a source claimed that China lobbied for the exclusion of the territorial dispute in the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason is because the Chinese lobbied to keep any reference to the South China Sea out of the final joint declaration,\u201d a Reuters source said. \u201cUnderstandably, a number of ASEAN countries felt that was inappropriate. It reflects the divide China\u2019s reclamation and militarization in the South China Seahas caused in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Wherever\u2019 law allows<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite China\u2019s opposition, the US Navy will continue their patrols \u2018wherever\u2019 international law allowed, said US admiral and Pacific Command commander Harry Harris.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternational seas and airspace belong to everyone and are not the dominion of any single nation\u2026 Our military will continue to fly, sail and operate whenever and wherever international law allows. The South China Sea is not and will not be an exception,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been conducting freedom of navigation operations all over the world for decades, so no one should be surprised by them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

It can be noted that the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen previously sailed near Chinese reclaimed reefs in the Spratly Islands last week. The move was part of US\u2019s \u2018routine freedom of navigation operations\u2019 which intended to \u2018prevent the decomposition of international laws and norms.\u2019<\/p>\n

US, China still have \u2018common ground\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

While the US and the Philippines tackled \u2018security issues,\u2019 US Navy chief Admiral John Richardson also met with his Chinese counterpart Admiral Wu Shengli and discussed the contested waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome pundits predict a coming clash between our nations. I do not ascribe to this pessimistic view\u2026 While we certainly disagree on some topics \u2013 the most public being China\u2019s claims in the South China Sea and our activities there \u2013 there are many areas where we have common ground,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n

Backstory:\u00a0US, Chinese Navy chiefs tackle maritime tensions on Spratlys<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and his US counterpart Ash Carter talked about \u2018regional security issues,\u2019 including the Spratly …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":64191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-64183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-rewrite","mauthors-cyra-moraleda","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64183","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}