Philippines to host Asean ZoPFF-C meeting over Spratlys disputes

Bridging UNCLOS and ZoPFFC

The Philippines will be hosting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Maritime Legal Experts’ Meeting this week to discuss Manila’s proposal for a Zone of Peace, Freedom, Friendship and Cooperation (ZoPFF/C) in the settlement of the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) dispute.

Maritime legal experts from the 10 Asean member-states –

1.      The Philippines

2.      Brunei Darussalam

3.      Malaysia

4.      Indonesia

5.      Singapore

6.      Vietnam

7.      Cambodia

8.      Laos 

9.      Thailand

10. Myanmar–

The meeting will converge in Manila this 3^rd week of September 2011.

The meeting was based on the decision of the Asean foreign ministers during the 44th Asean Foreign Ministers Meeting in Bali, Indonesia “to study the proposal with the assistance of maritime legal experts.”

“The meeting seeks to establish a common understanding among Asean member-states on the ZoPFF/C proposal,” the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement.

Its findings will be reported to the Asean Senior Officials' Meeting (Asean SOM), which will then make recommendations for the Asean Foreign Ministers to consider before the 19th Asean Summit in November 2011 in Bali, Indonesia.

The said meeting will be held at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza in Pasay City (Metro Manila).

Under the Philippine-proposed ZoPFF/C, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said that disputed areas of the Spratly Islands must be segregated from the undisputed areas as consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

In this framework, disputed areas can be transformed into an area of joint cooperation while undisputed areas will solely be under the jurisdiction of a particular claimant-country.

Spratly Islands is a group of islets, reefs and atolls that are purportedly rich in oil and mineral reserves.

They are being claimed in whole by China and in part by the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam.

The past months saw the flaring of political tensions between Beijing, Manila and Hanoi over alleged increasing Chinese military activities in the contested waters.

As the Philippine government lodged diplomatic protests over the perceived Chinese intrusions, Beijing was quick to deny the allegations.

Del Rosario said that the issue be settled under maritime international laws, and even suggested it to be brought before the United Nations-backed International Tribunal on the Law of the Seas (ITLOS).

The Asian economic powerhouse, however, remained adamant that it will only negotiate with claimant-countries in a bilateral level.

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Hainan China Mounted Nuclear Weapon Facing Manila

When China’s largest offshore petroleum producer launched a $1 billion oil rig this summer from Shanghai, Lt. Gen. Juancho Sabban, the commander of Philippine military forces commented that China of 1,500 miles away in the South China Sea, began preparing for trouble.

The drilling platform, said China, would soon be heading in the 38 general’s direction - southward into waters rich in oil and natural gas, and also in volatile fuel for potential conflict.

China pointing the Map down south adjacent to the City of Puerto Princesa Palawan, Province of the Philippines. China is willing to face war and conflict just to drill the oil and gas with or without approval from the Philippines government as they claim the area as undisputable and it core interest.

Regardless of the UNCLOS provision of 200 Nautical Miles Exclusive Economic Zone for the Philippines and other neighboring country within the proximity of the West Philippines Sea (South China Sea), china believed their map is right and will surpassed / overpower the United Nations International laws of Sea as they have their own laws and concept.

Red Alert- Philippines for the unexpected attack of China

Few information leaked that china is preparing to sink the new Philippines Navy Warship Flagship BRP Gregorio del Pilar, a newly acquired and refurbished from the USA high endurance Hamilton Class Cutter Frigate.

Chinese nuclear submarine armed with nuclear missiles has been mounted in Hainan island south of China and high powered weapon are now facing Manila for ready to attack anytime.

Leaked information mentioned that China will target to paralyze the Philippines by attacking the BRP Gregorio del Pilar prior of their planned launching of the $1 billion Dollar oil rig in the area near Pruerto Princesa this year or early next year in 2012.

The Philippines is not yet aware of this china’s plan. The United Nations is now the only chance to intervene or to mediate prior the leaked information to happen.

The cooling of the West Philippines Sea (South China Sea) issue is the preparation of China for their ready to launch $1 billion Dollar oil rig and a simultaneous attack to destroy the BRP Gregorio del Pilar.

“We started war-gaming what we could do,” said Sabban, a barrel-chested, American-trained marine who, as chief of the Philippines’ Western Command, is responsible for keeping out intruders from a wide swath of sea that Manila views as its own 200 Nautical Miles Area from the shore but that is also claimed by Beijing.

China oil hungry giant to attack Spratlys

Arguments over who owns what in the South China Sea have rumbled on for decades, ever since the doomed Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek in 1947 issued a crude map with 11 dashes marking as Chinese almost the entire 1.3 million-square-mile waterway. The Communist Party toppled Chiang but kept his map and his expansive claims, though it trimmed a couple of dashes.

Today, China’s insatiable thirst for energy has injected a highly combustible new element into long-running quarrels over cartography, arcane issues of international law and ancient shards of pottery that Beijing says testify to its “indisputable sovereignty” over the West Philippines Sea (South China Sea).

China, which imports more than half its oil, will nearly double its demand for the stuff over the next quarter-century, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris. Its demand for natural gas — which is believed to be particularly abundant beneath an archipelago of contested islands and reefs, known as the Spratlys, just west of here — is projected to more than quadruple.

With consumption soaring and the price of imports rising, China is desperate for new sources to boost its proven energy reserves, which for oil now account for just 1.1 percent of the world total — a paltry share for a country that last year consumed 10.4 percent of total world oil production and 20.1 percent of all the energy consumed on the planet, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.

As a result, Beijing views disputed waters as not merely an arena for nationalist flag-waving but as indispensable to its future economic well-being.

“The potential for what lies beneath the sea is clearly a big motivator” in a recent shift by China to a more pugnacious posture in the West Philippines Sea (South China Sea), said William J. Fallon, a retired four-star admiral who headed the U.S. Pacific Command from 2005 until 2007. China is wary of pushing its claims to the point of serious armed conflict, which would torpedo the economic growth on which the party has staked its survival. But, Fallon said, such a thick fog of secrecy surrounds China’s thinking that “we have little insight into what really makes them tick.”

A big factor in this uncertainty is a meshing of Chinese commercial, strategic and military calculations. Like other giant energy companies in China, the China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, the owner of the new Chinese rig, pursues profit but is ultimately answerable to the party, whose secretive Organization Department appoints its boss.

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