China's defense chief Liang visits Pentagon amid diplomatic row over dissident Chen, will discuss West Philippine Sea dispute

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon hosted China's Defense Minister Liang Guanglie on Monday in a bid to boost military ties as the United States tried to contain the fallout from a diplomatic dispute over a top Chinese dissident.

Liang's discussions with his US counterpart, Leon Panetta, were expected to focus on the growing military rivalry between the two countries, while American officials planned to steer clear of the case of blind rights campaigner Chen Guangcheng.

"We're not planning on raising it" during the first visit to Washington by a Chinese minister of defense in nine years, a senior defense official said. Chen's fate was a subject for US diplomats at the State Department, not the Pentagon, the official added.

Chen dramatically escaped house arrest and took refuge at the US embassy in Beijing on April 26, creating a dilemma for both governments just days before the arrival of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

At the end of her visit, Clinton said she struck a deal that would allow Chen to go to the United States with his family to study. But China warned the United States to take measures to avoid a repeat of the Chen incident.

The Pentagon has long sought to forge a stronger security dialogue with China's top brass but defense relations have remained an on-again-off-again affair, with Chen's situation threatening to overshadow Liang's visit.

Accompanied by a 24-member delegation including an array of senior officers, Liang was greeted with a US honor guard standing at attention on the steps of the Pentagon, while a Marine Corps band clad in red and white played the national anthems of each country.

The talks were due to touch on North Korea's nuclear program, maritime disputes in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) and US concerns about cyber threats allegedly coming from China, the senior defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The cyber issue is an important area for dialogue and discussion with the Chinese government and the Chinese military in particular. We obviously have some concerns about some cyber behavior that appears to originate in China," the official said.

Before his meeting with Liang, the US defense secretary said in an interview over the weekend that his priority remained improving military-to-military relations. But he acknowledged that Chen's case and human rights would be addressed by his colleagues at the State Department.

Speaking to Bloomberg Television, Panetta said that "the purpose of these discussions is to also indicate our concerns, and one of those concerns, obviously, relates to human rights and I suspect that the State Department is making very clear to the Chinese our concerns in that area."

Apart from the turbulence surrounding the Chinese dissident, Liang's visit comes at a delicate moment with Beijing irritated with Washington's stance on the South China Sea and Taiwan.

Military contacts between China and the United States were broken off by Beijing in early 2010 when Washington unveiled a $6 billion arms contract with Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.

Contacts were resumed at the end of the year shortly before then US defense secretary Robert Gates visited Beijing in January 2011.

But the White House, under pressure from some lawmakers, said recently it will give "serious consideration" to selling new US fighter jets to Taiwan.

With China and the Philippines locked in a territorial dispute over the South China Sea, the United States also has plans to double military assistance to Manila, a move criticized by Beijing.

The United States, which is increasingly worried about Beijing's mounting military strength, has sought to build up ties with the Chinese armed forces to avoid possible misunderstandings and defuse tensions.

Beijing, however, has rejected suggestions its military has adopted a more aggressive stance.

"China seeks no hegemony and its defense policy is defensive in nature. Beijing does not deserve Washington's ill-grounded suspicion over China's peaceful development," state-run Xinhua news agency wrote in a commentary.

For his a week-long visit, Liang arrived in San Francisco on Friday and toured a US naval station on Saturday in San Diego, where he got a first-hand look at an American destroyer.

Liang is scheduled to visit a US Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, an Army base at Fort Benning in South Carolina and the West Point military academy in New York before departing Thursda

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UN: Philippines’ climate law the best in the world

The aim of the Philippine Climate Change Act is to protect the rights of the people in harmony with nature (© Jonicdao/Creative Commons)

By Tierney Smith

The climate change laws in the Philippines are "best in world" according to a UN special envoy.

Margareta Wahlström, the special Disaster Risk Reduction representative of the UN Secretary General praised the Philippines for the law on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction for taking a lead in the global campaign to mitigate the risk from climate change.

Speaking at a press conference in the country she said: "You do have now an excellent legal framework for disaster risk reduction and an excellent framework for climate adaptation. The basis [of the laws] is really for empowering local governments."

She stressed that the laws represented a policy shift from reactionary to proactive and commended Senator Loren Legarda for her work in creating the laws.

The climate laws in the Philippines consist of two Acts of Parliament. The first, passed in 2009 was the Climate Change Act which created the Climate Change Commission to tackle related issues across the country.

This Commission then cosponsored the second of the Philippines laws the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010.

What makes these laws the best in the world?

Let's compare these laws to the UK Climate Change Act of 2008. In a similar way the Philippines laws set out a Climate Change Commission to tackle climate change, the UK's Committee on Climate Change was also founded as provision to the 2008 law.

However, beyond this the law also laid out clear targets for the country to reduce its emissions by 80% by 2050 on 1990 levels and to set out 5 yearly carbon budgets and incentive mechanism to help the country achieve this aim.

In the same way, the latest country to pass climate laws, Mexico will also set out clear budgets on emission reductions within this legislation as well as establishing a voluntary carbon trading scheme.

Unlike these laws, the Philippines Climate Change Act of 2009 has no legally binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions and it has no targets on renewables.

However, reading over the country's climate laws, some aspects do make the Philippines stand out as progressive when it comes to the ways in which they plan for climate change and help it live up to the new title given to it by Wahlström.

An inclusion of all relevant departments and agencies:

One of the major criticisms of climate policy, the world over, is that it is often treated as an isolated issue, and dealt with by a few specific departments and organisations. How many times before have we heard that their needs to be a more joined up approach to climate policy?

Written into the 2009 Act was the premise that the advisory boards to any Commission should include secretaries from the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Environment and Natural Resources as well as Education, Foreign Affairs, Health and Interior and Local Government.

Other sectors included in the Commission include Defense, Science and Technology, Industry and Development, showing a multi-faceted approach to climate change.

Outside organizations including representatives for women, from provinces and cities, from industry, education and civil society are also included in the Commission which meets at least four times a year.

To further ensure this cross-sector and cross-department approach is taken it is written into the Act for "the State to systematically integrate the concept of climate change in various phases of policy formulation, development plans, poverty reduction strategies and other development tools and techniques by all agencies and instrumentalities of government."

Implementation of local and national adaptation plans

The Philippines Climate Change Act implemented a National Climate Change Action Plan including national impacts of climate change, the identification of vulnerable communities and areas including ecosystems, identification of disproportionate impact on men, women and children, an assessment of management of risks and the identification of greenhouse has mitigation potentials.

Alongside this, however, it also proposed a series of Local Climate Change Action Plans which would allow frontline agencies to formulate, plan and implement plans in their area within the framework of the National Plan.

The work done by municipal and city governments would then feed back into the National Plan. The Bill also called for municipal and city governments to consider climate change adaptation, as one of their regular functions.

Focus on Gender and youth involvement

Another area where more work has to be done globally is the inclusion of women, and the youth in climate change policy. While this is slowly improving, there is still a lot more to be done to both acknowledge the impacts of a changing climate on these vulnerable groups but also the power they have in driving change.

In the Philippine's Climate Change Act and the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act mentions of both women and children are in abundance including "the policy of the State to incorporate a gender-sensitive, pro-children and pro-poor perspective in all climate change and renewable energy efforts" and to "conduct early recovery and post-disaster needs assessment institutionalizing gender analysis."

The depth and bravery of the Philippines' law should provide food for thought for national negotiators as they gather in Bonn next week for the next round of UN negotiations on climate change.

How do you think the Philippines has done? Should the EU be matching this? What about other developing economies?

Let us know what you think. Leave us a comment below, leave a post on our Facebook page, tweet us @rtccnewswire or email info@rtcc.org.

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