If Romney will win as US President to replace Obama, is there any impact to the Philippine’ territorial Security over China’s invasion in Spratly Islands?

20 Questions for Mitt Romney on China

On Monday (October 22, 2012), the candidates will square off on foreign policy. One of the five topics is China and how the next president will manage our complex, highly interdependent relationship with the world's second largest economy.

Our relationship with China has economic upsides for the U.S.--China is our fastest growing export market, for example--but also significant downsides, including intellectual property theft and market restrictions. America needs to work with Beijing on geopolitical challenges like Iran and climate change while also encouraging Beijing to act peacefully and according to the rule of law in the South China Sea. Striking a balance of firmness and cooperation with China that furthers U.S. interests is a tricky but crucial endeavor.

The Obama Administration has a record of success in managing this relationship. We need to know whether Governor Romney can do the same. Governor Romney has been talking tough about China on the campaign trail, but we know very little about his approach. Here are 20 questions he should answer on China.

1. Growing exports is one point in your five point plan for growing the American economy. Can you explain your decision not to visit a major US export market, like China, on your overseas trip?
2. The President is on track to fulfill his pledge to double US exports in 5 years, which many said was overly ambitious at the time he made it. Exports to China are up 50%. How will you improve on his record? Please be specific.
3. One of the few concrete foreign policy proposals you have offered is to brand China a currency manipulator on Day 1 of your Administration. How do you respond to the criticism that this will likely start a trade war?
4. Even if it doesn't start a trade war, do you think it makes sense to antagonize China's new leaders in this way before meeting them?
5. In your speeches, you often paint a dark picture of China's potential future path. Experts say that if we assume China will be an enemy, it is sure to become one. How do you respond?
6. U.S. presidents for the last 40 years have endeavored to develop a constructive, working relationship with China. On the campaign trail, you never speak about any opportunity associated with China. Is there none?
7. Are there issues on which you anticipate you will have to work on cooperatively with the leaders of China? (Hint: Iran, North Korea, Sudan).
8. You often criticize the President for letting China "walk all over" the US on trade. As you know, the President has brought more major trade actions against China than any other president. What trade actions would you take against China that the President has not already taken? In your book, No Apology, you criticized the Obama Administration for taking trade action against China on tire imports, saying, "President Obama's action to defend American tire companies from foreign competition ... is decidedly bad for the nation and our workers." What trade remedies are appropriate to pursue against China and which not?
9. How is your proposed "Reagan Economic Zone" different from the Trans Pacific Partnership that the President is already negotiating? The description of it on your Web site of a free trade agreement among "like-minded nations around the world that are genuinely committed to the principles of open markets" sounds very similar.
10. You've made several remarks on the campaign trail about the amount of money America borrows from China. I'm sure you know, however, that it only amounts to 8% of US debt altogether. And the Pentagon has recently stated in a report that it does not judge this arrangement to give China strategic leverage over the US. Do you feel differently?
11. You often attack the President for outsourcing jobs to China and yet, while you were at Bain, you invested in companies that did just that, according to the Boston Globe. Can you explain?
12. While at Bain, you invested in a Chinese company whose deplorable working conditions you described at a fundraiser earlier this year. Can you explain your decision?
13. According to the Financial Times, your trust was invested in the Chinese oil company Cnooc "at a time when the US was growing concerned about the Chinese oil company's multibillion-dollar dealings with Tehran." Can you explain that choice?
14. Despite a front page New York Times story, as far as we know, your blind trust is still invested in a Chinese technology company called Uniview that sells equipment to the Chinese government that it can use to spy on dissidents and Tibetan monks. But the trustee of your blind trust has said publicly that he will endeavor to make the investments in the blind trust conform to your positions, and whenever it comes to his attention that there is something inconsistent, he ends the investment?
15. You often make the point that the US has fewer ships in our Navy than in 1916. The Washington Post has called this a "3 Pinocchio" lie because today's boats are much more lethal, agile, flexible and high-tech than our great-grandfathers. Also, as you know, the recent drop in the number of ships happened under President George W. Bush, and the numbers are actually up under President Obama. So please describe what is missing from today's Navy and explain why they have not asked for it.
16. Why did you intervene in the Chen case when US diplomats were still on the ground in Beijing negotiating his release? Isn't that, at best, bad manners and, at worse, unpatriotic?
17. What do you think of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang?
18. You often talk about the importance of working with our allies in Asia. Given that the President has deepened engagement with them in so many ways, what would you do differently? Be specific please. Do you think there is any tension between engaging with allies and confirming China's conviction that the US is trying to contain it? Would you engage with multilateral institutions like ASEAN and the EAS in Asia to the same degree the Administration has?
19. Many experts think its essential for the US to ratify the Law of the Sea in order to have more leverage with China in the South China Sea. It's a move supported by the Coast Guard, the Navy, America's oil and gas companies and environmental groups. Do you support it?
20. China is now the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. What will be your approach to getting Beijing to commit to binding targets on its emissions?

Huffingtonpost.com

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₱15-Billion pocketed by former President Arroyo executives of ₱ 0.12 Trillion Bridge Scam Projects

₱ 0.12 Trillion unfinished Bridges during the Former President Arroyo Administration

Arroyo execs pocket ₱15-B from bridge scam

Philippines – Government officials from the past administration took an estimated ₱ 10 billion to ₱ 15 billion in kickbacks from the ₱ 111-billion "President's Bridges Program" that did not go through a bidding process, Senator Sergio Osmeña III said Monday after a hearing by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.

"They could have made a kickback of ₱10 billion to ₱15 billion easy. The figure will be more accurate in the future," Osmeña told reporters after the hearing.

Osmeña, in a previous privilege speech, said that the administration of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had entered into 14 anomalous contracts, estimated to have cost ₱ 111,942,110,000, for the construction of bridges that were not fully utilized.

Senator Panfilo Lacson had described the program, which were made up of contracts that spanned over a period of eleven years, as "bridges to nowhere."

Osmeña said that all the officials involved in the anomalous program such as "the secretaries, undersecretaries, associate secretaries, etc." have put the government in a "grossly disadvantageous contract" and they should be charged with violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

Among those he cited were the then officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), National Economic Development Authority, Department of Justice and the Department of Finance (DOF).

"It would have been fine if it was just one contract, but when you have 14 contracts, there's something wrong," he said.

Under the Office of the President

Osmeña questioned why the projects were managed under the Office of the President when it was just an infrastructure project.

Present DPWH secretary Rogelio Singson said that at the time, the PBP was under the office of the president and was being implemented by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

"Why should the [office of the president] set up a different project office when there was already an office under the [DPWH]?" Osmeña said.

He also cited the significant difference in the costs of the projects allocated between the PBP office and regular DPWH bridges office.

Singson said that "projects under the PBP were initiated by the president, unlike the others which were initiated by the DPWH under the regular bridges program and all were on national roads."

The project was transferred to the DPWH sometime in 2003 because it was not being implemented as fast, Singson said.

Osmeña said that Arroyo could be held liable for the programs. He said that they will conduct further hearings in order to "nail down all the loose ends [because] they have put the government at a big disadvantage by going into these contracts."

When asked if Pampanga representative Arroyo will be called before the committee, he said he would want to but it was difficult given her health conditions.

Singson said that he has given specific instruction to stop using the PBP office, "since we do not report to the president [anymore] on this program."

One-third bridge

During the hearing, Osmeña showed pictures of one of the bridges in Banga, Aklan that only goes one-third of the way across a river. One end of the bridge goes directly down into the middle of the river.

In the summer, the bridge can be crossed and cars will have to go down to the dry river bed area and cross the remaining distance to get to the other side, Osmeña said.

But during the rainy season, the river fills up and leaves the remaining two-third of the way filled with mud.

"What happened? Did they run out of money?" Osmeña asked.

Singson said that the bridge in the picture was the 203-meter long Guadalupe Bridge. He said that DPWH had provided the construction materials to the Local Government Units (LGU) because it was their responsibility to conduct the actual construction.

He added that the construction materials, consisting of materials for modular steel bridges, from foreign contractor Mabey and Johnson were already provided to the LGU.

Mabey and Johnson conviction

Top officials of the British bridge-building firm Mabey and Johnson, along with director David Mabey, were previously convicted for paying kickbacks to officials of the regime of former Iraq president Saddam Hussein.

Mabey had been convicted to eight months for paying $420,000 to Iraqi officials. Other top officials include Managing director Charles Forsyth and Richard Gledhill.

They were convicted for the case of allegedly paying a 10 percent commission of the contact price of 13 steel bridges that were supplied to Iraq back in 2001.

The firm had also reportedly bribed officials from several countries such as Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique, Bangladesh, and Jamaica in exchange for bridge supply contracts.

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Philippines – Russia $1.6 billion bilateral trade in 2011 push greater trade, investment

Philippines and Russia are seeking new ways to expand trade and investment, officials from both sides said, considering there is much room for improving the countries' $1.6 billion bilateral trade in 2011.

Russian Ambassador Nikolay Kudashev, honorary chairman of the Philippine-Russia Business Assembly (PRBA), said in a speech at the business matching forum on the sidelines of the Manila FAME exhibition that travel, supply chain, food trade, education, and information technology were just some of the areas that could benefit from sustained bilateral meetings.

"Long awaited for the two of us are solutions for secure supply chains and establishing direct routes of communication between the Philippines and the Far East of the Russian Federation. They would not only enable Manila with the access to the riches of Russia but at the same time would equip it with alternative means of access to the markets of Central Asia and Western Europe involving Russia's transit potential," Kudashev said.

On food security, the envoy said that combining the Philippines' agricultural production and Russia's supply chain solutions as well as advanced space imaging for disaster risk management could be "mutually beneficial." Also "enchanting," he said, is the prospect of innovations from establishing linkages in education and technology.

"The recent establishment here in Manila of the regional office of the Russian NODA Software Company would prove that there is an ample space for cooperation," he said.

Consul to the Russian Federation Armi Garcia, honorary president of PRBA, said there was increased interest among Russian tourists to explore the Philippines, renewing bilateral talks on the possible expansion of an air services agreement to include direct Manila-Moscow flights.

There are presently chartered Moscow-Cebu City flights under the air deal signed in 2009.

"I am optimistic there will be increased bilateral cooperation through what I call the 'Movement 3.' It starts with tourism and culture exchange and when there is some familiarity with the Philippines and what it can offer, then comes trade development, and then investments," Garcia said.

Yevgenia Konkol, chair of the Russia-Philippine Business Council (RPBC), said there are 39 Russian enterprises cooperating with or at least in discussion with Philippine counterparts.

Inquirer BUSINESS

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