Progressive groups ask, why is the Aquino government suddenly engaging China over the Spratly Islands?

Progressive groups ask, why is the Aquino government suddenly engaging China over the Spratly Islands?

 “It is as clear as day,” declared Terry Ridon, chairman of League of Filipino Students, “that it is only when US interests are served shall it extend assistance to its semi-colony.”
By MARYA SALAMAT

Bulatlat.com
MANILA – When US Ambassador Harry Thomas seemed to contradict this week the earlier statement of the US embassy about not intervening in the Spratly Islands issue, President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III immediately welcomed Thomas’ statements. For weeks now, the Aquino administration has been loudly complaining of Chinese “intrusions” in parts of Spratly which the Philippines has been claiming as its territory.

But to back up that claim the Philippine military installations and deployment in the disputed islets seemed puny against those of rival claimants. And so, the Aquino government’s solution has been to invoke its treaty partnership with the United States and expect US troops and military hardware to lend support.

“It is as clear as day,” declared Terry Ridon, chairman of League of Filipino Students, “that it is only when US interests are served shall it extend assistance to its semi-colony.”

“The Aquino government is allowing the Philippines to become the battleground of a US proxy war with China,” said Vencer Crisostomo, chairman of national youth group Anakbayan. Not only that, they called attention to the way the Aquino and the US governments have been insinuating the possibility of more US troops and arms arriving in the Philippines.

While the group Akbayan protested the Chinese “intrusions” in front of the embassy of China, the progressive labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) protested the way the Aquino government has been playing into the US’ “desperation to expand its military presence in the country and the region.”

The Aquino government’s assertion of sovereignty over the Spratly Islands is “hypocritical,” charged the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), considering that the Aquino government is at the same time “allowing the US imperialists to blatantly trample on Philippine sovereignty.”

Pro-US war-mongering

Aside from the Philippines, six other countries are laying claim, wholly or partly, on the Spratly group of islands, a group of tiny, rocky islands in the South China Sea believed to be rich in oil and natural gas. These islands were “discovered” under former strongman Ferdinand Marcos, who decreed that it would then be part of Philippine territory. This week, as Noynoy Aquino engages in a word war with China for parts of the Spratly, namely the Recto Bank (Reed Bank to China), Aquino has also ordered the renaming of South China Sea as “West Philippine Sea.”

All these claims to Spratly are unilateral, said Roland Simbulan, a UP professor and expert on geopolitics.
Prior to Marcos’ declaration which China regarded as an “invasion” of their Nansha islands, the Philippines, said China, has never referred to the Spratly islands as part of its territory, whereas China can boast of a long historical claim to it. The other claimants to Spratly are Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. In 2002, these countries including China and the Philippines signed a Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) ..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/06/17/aquino-governments-row-with-china-over-spratlys-criticized-as-part-of-us-script/