What’s the point in the standoff with China?
By BENJIE OLIVEROS
Bulatlat.com
There is so much government and media hype over the country’s disputes with China. First it was about the territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands. Now it is about the standoff at Scarborough shoal. It seems as if somebody is trying to stoke the tensions or create a crisis.
At the center of it all is Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III who swings from declaring that he is all for a diplomatic resolution to the Spratly islands dispute to begging for assurances of support and weapons from the US; from sending a coast guard cutter to the Scarborough shoal purportedly to “defuse the tension” to declaring that his government is not inclined to go to war with China. But now the US-RP joint military exercises are being held near the disputed waters.
What is the point in all this?
Is it about asserting the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity? Perhaps, but why is the Aquino government trying to assert it by surrendering the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity to the US by begging it for support and weapons, and by “inviting” it to station more troops in the country?.... MORE
Source: Bulatlat.com
URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2012/04/18/whats-the-point-in-the-standoff-with-china/