Security meeting- U.S. military to boost Philippines presence; China tells army to be prepared

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell (R) joins hands with U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Mark Lippert (2nd R)

(Reuters) - U.S. and Philippine officials are expected to agree on an increase in the number of U.S. military ships, aircraft and troops rotating through the Philippines, Filipino officials said, as tensions simmer with China over its maritime claims.

Though he made no direct reference to the territorial disputes, new Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping urged his military to prepare for a struggle. He made the comments during his visit to a South China Sea fleet ship in southern Guangdong province, but did not name any potential aggressor.

Senior U.S. and Philippine officials met on Wednesday in Manila to discuss strengthening security and economic ties at a time of growing tension over China's aggressive sovereignty claims over vast stretches of the disputed South China Sea.

Philippine defense and diplomatic officials said they expected to see more U.S. ships, aircraft and troops for training exercises and disaster and relief operations.

"What we are discussing right now is increasing the rotational presence of U.S. forces," Carlos Sorreta, the foreign ministry's Assistant Secretary for American Affairs, told reporters. A five-year joint U.S.-Philippine military exercise plan would be approved this week, he added.

The size of the increase in the U.S. military assets in the Philippines, a former U.S. colony, was unclear.

Pio Lorenzo Batino, Philippine deputy defence minister, said there were "substantial discussions" on a possible new framework allowing Washington to put equipment in the Southeast Asian state.

"There has been no discussion yet on specifics ... (these are) policy consultations and the specifics would be determined by the technical working groups," he told a news conference, saying the new framework was discussed in the context of increasing rotational presence.

U.S. Assistant Sevretary of State Kurt Campbell said the two allies' relationship was "in a renaissance".

The discussions come as the Philippines, Australia and other parts of the region have seen a resurgence of U.S. warships, planes and personnel under Washington's so-called "pivot" in foreign, economic and security policy towards Asia announced last year.

Wary of Washington's intentions, China is building up its own military. Its claims over most of the South China Sea have set it directly against U.S. allies Vietnam and the Philippines, while Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia also claim parts of the mineral-rich waters.

Xi, who assumed the role of military chief about a month ago, called on the 2.3-million-strong People's Liberation Army to "push forward preparations for a military struggle", state news agency Xinhua said.

Xi, speaking during a three-day inspection of the PLA's Guangzhou base starting last Saturday, did not say against whom the struggle might be fought.

His remarks echo those he made a week ago and are a common refrain by Chinese leaders. Xi replaced President Hu Jintao as chairman of the Central Military Commission on November 15.

Xi also said the army should "modernize" for combat readiness, but gave no specific details.

MILITARY BASES

U.S. and Philippine officials say there is no plan to revive permanent U.S. military bases in the Philippines - the last ones were closed in 1992 - and that the increased presence would help provide relief during disasters such as a typhoon last week that killed more than 700 people.

"The increase rotation presence is in areas where we have been traditionally exercising," said Sorreta. "There are other areas for example where we have been experiencing more disasters. So we might be expanding exercises there."

One U.S. official said Washington was not ready to wade directly into the territorial dispute in the South China Sea and instead would focus on strengthening security ties with long-standing allies such as the Philippines.

"I don't think you'll see any real movement on the South China Sea," the U.S. official said.

"I'm sure it will come up, but we aren't trying to step in and 'solve' that issue. We really want the solution to be done by the claimants themselves and are hoping the Code of Conduct discussions move forward," said the official, referring to a Code of Conduct aimed at easing the risk of naval flashpoints.

Sorreta told Reuters the Philippines also favored an increased deployment of U.S. aircraft and ships "so we can make use of them when the need arises", citing last week's typhoon. He said they would also welcome more U.S. humanitarian supplies. (http://is.gd/qQUY8i)

Reuters

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N-Korea Successful Space rocket launched, 2nd debris Spash down East Philippines at 10 AM

South Koreans watch a television report on North Korea's rocket launch at Seoul railway station in Seoul December 12, 2012. North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents. The rocket, which North Korea says was designed to put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labelled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental the United States.

North Korea's new leader burnishes credentials with rocket

(Reuters) - North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents.

The rocket, which North Korea says was designed to put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental the United States.

"The satellite has entered the planned orbit," North Korea's state news agency KCNA said.

North Korea followed what it said was a similar successful launch in 2009 with a nuclear test that prompted the United Nations Security Council to stiffen sanctions against Pyongyang that it originally imposed in 2006 after the North's first nuclear test.

The state is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions, although Kim Jong-un, the youthful head of state who took power a year ago, is believed to have continued the state's "military first" programs put into place by his deceased father Kim Jong-il.

After Wednesday's launch, which saw the second stage of the rocket splash down in seas off the Philippines as planned, Japan's U.N. envoy called for a Security Council meeting. However, diplomats say further tough sanctions are unlikely to be agreed at the body as China, the North's only major ally, will oppose them.

The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. Korea time (9 p.m. ET on Tuesday), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and easily surpassed a failed April launch that flew for less than two minutes.

There was no independent confirmation it had put a satellite into orbit.

Japan's likely next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of an election on December 16 and who made his name as a North Korea hawk, called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution "strongly criticizing" Pyongyang.

There was no immediate official reaction from Washington, South Korea's major military backer, or from China.

China had expressed "deep concern" over the launch which was announced a day after a visit by a top politburo member to Pyongyang when he met Kim Jong-un.

On Wednesday, China's state news agency Xinhua said North Korea had the "right to conduct peaceful exploration of outer space."

But it added: "Pyongyang should also abide by relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 1874, which demands (North Korea) not to conduct 'any launch using ballistic missile technology' and urges it to 'suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program.'"

U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who heads the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, quickly condemned the launch and called for tougher sanctions.

"It is clear that Pyongyang is moving ever closer towards its ultimate goal of producing a nuclear ballistic missile in order to threaten not only our allies in the Asia-Pacific region but the U.S. as well," she said.

A senior adviser to South Korea's president said last week it was unlikely that there would be a meaningful set of sanctions agreed at the United Nations but that Seoul would expect its allies to tighten sanctions unilaterally.

A YEAR ON FOR THE THIRD KIM

Kim Jong-un, believed to be 29 years old, took office after his father died on December 17 last year and experts believe that Wednesday's launch was intended to commemorate the first anniversary of the death.

The April launch was timed for the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea and the grandfather of its current ruler.

"This is a considerable boost in establishing the rule of Kim Jong-un," said Cho Min, an expert at the Korea Institute of National Unification.

There have been few indications the secretive and impoverished state, where the United Nations estimates a third of the population is malnourished, has made any advances in opening up economically over the past year.

North Korea remains reliant on minerals exports to China and remittances from tens of thousands of its people working on labor projects overseas.

The 22 million populations often need handouts from defectors who have escaped to South Korea in order to afford basic medicines.

Given the puny size of its economy - per capita income is less than $2,000 a year - one of the few ways that North Korea can attract world attention is by emphasizing its military threat.

Pyongyang wants the United States to resume aid and to recognize it diplomatically, although the April launch skippered a planned food deal.

It is believed to be some years away from developing a functioning nuclear warhead and to have enough plutonium for around half a dozen nuclear bombs, according to nuclear experts.

The North has also been enriching uranium which would give it a second path to nuclear weapons as it sits on vast natural uranium reserves.

It says that its development is part of a civil nuclear program, but has also boasted of it being a "nuclear weapons power".

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park and Yoo Choonsik in SEOUL; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) (http://is.gd/DuHCJ5)

Reuters 

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Minister Del Rosario the LONE bravest ASEAN Minister who Stand up against China

Filipino Albert del Rosario a lone ASEAN voice taking on China

Placing consensus above all, it is fair to say that ASEAN leaders are generally not known for their displays of emotion or passion.

Yet, in a crucial closed-door meeting in July, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario tried to tap those dormant qualities as he tried to rally his peers to stand up to China over the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

Trying, in the words of one observer, "to bloody well wake them up", del Rosario quoted the famous lines from German theologian Martin Niemöller of the perils of doing nothing in the face of mounting tyranny. Describing how the Nazis, unopposed, first came for the communists and then the trade unionists, Niemöller said: "Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no-one left to speak out for me."

Rarely has the Association of Southeast Asian Nations heard such language within its staterooms. "It was classic del Rosario," said one ASEAN envoy. "He's not afraid to appeal to our better selves … and he's not afraid to stand up and be counted when it comes to the South China Sea."

That meeting ended in unprecedented rancour as the 10 Southeast Asian foreign ministers failed to produce an annual communique for the first time in the grouping's 45-year history. Meeting host Cambodia stood accused of doing Beijing's bidding in shutting down debate over how to capture in the document regional concern over the South China Sea.

When ASEAN leaders met in Phnom Penh last month, Philippine President Benigno Aquino continued his foreign secretary's theme. While he contradicted Cambodia's public claims of an ASEAN deal - hailed by Beijing - not to "internationalize" the West Philippines Sea (South China Sea) dispute, he told his peers to stand united, according to one meeting transcript.

"If you don't stand up when your neighbor's rights are violated, then you set the stage for the violation of your own rights," Aquino said.

This time Manila was more successful. With discreet backing from some the grouping's bigger players, including Indonesia and Vietnam, the claimed Cambodian deal never made it to the official closing statement.

But the broader issue of ASEAN's push to start formal negotiations with China on a binding code of conduct to govern intensifying tensions across the West Philippines Sea (South China Sea) until territorial disputes can be solved remains, at best, a work in progress.

Chinese officials have made increasingly clear in recent weeks that they are wary of the influence of "outside powers", particularly the US and Japan, and resent the portrayal of the code as somehow being a means to contain and/or control China. Hopes that negotiations could start early in 2013 now appear to be in vain.

Sitting in his office - part of a complex on Manila's Roxas Boulevard that overlooks the West Philippines Sea (South China Sea) - the courtly 73-year-old del Rosario sounds frustrated yet sanguine as he reviews a bruising year of diplomacy at the forefront of the strategic shifts now upsetting the region.

Ultimately, he stresses, he wants to return Sino-Philippine relations to a previously agreed status quo where territorial disputes were kept to the side of a relationship that flourished across trade, social and political fronts - something he believes would ultimately serve China's broader desires for a stable region.

"If there is a message I want to get across, that's it," he says.

Returning to that point will be no easy task, he acknowledges. The dispute over Scarborough Shoal - known in Chinese as Huangyan Island or as Panatag Shoal to the Philippines which within the UNCLOS 200 Nautical Miles Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines- is now the focus of the relationship.

With Beijing still deriding "provocations" after a Philippine naval ship challenged Chinese fishermen early this year, Fu Ying, the vice-minister for foreign affairs, recently told him that Beijing intended to keep coastguard-type vessels at the shoal permanently.

China has also used ropes to block access to the interior of the shoal, which falls within its controversial nine-dash line claim to virtually all of the South China Sea.

In some 36 rounds of consultations - "I've been counting them," Del Rosario says - Beijing has also detailed in no uncertain terms what it expects from Manila. No "internationalization" means bilateral talks only, and nothing conducted via the ASEAN, the United Nations or "outside partners" - particularly the Philippines' long-term security ally, the United States.

The Aquino administration is clearly rejecting Beijing's prescription. It is also renewing its strategic relationships, seeking to buttress its tiny and overstretched armed forces. US ships, submarines and military aircraft are suddenly visiting Philippines' ports and airfields once again while discreet talks are also under way with Japan to acquire a fleet of state-of-the-art coastguard cutters. It is also working more closely with Indonesia and fellow West Philippines Sea (South China Sea) claimant Vietnam.

As eloquent as he can be at times, del Rosario does not mince words when he talks about Beijing's demands.

"No sovereign country wants to be dictated to," he said.

"China is endeavoring to dictate to us how we should be behaving and what we should be doing. We feel that we ought to be able to use all the tools in the peaceful pursuit of resolution to [disputes] that is in accordance with our national interests."

Those "tools" include a three-track approach by Manila - talks with ASEAN and international partners, bilateral diplomacy with Beijing and research into taking unilateral legal action to formally dispute China's claim under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The latter, some analysts believe, would risk Beijing's wrath, and extensive economic and diplomatic retaliation would be expected.

Del Rosario insists, however, that the long-term goal must be a "durable" legal and political solution, rather than brittle case-by-case efforts that do not tackle the broader issues. "Ultimately, I'm trying to be constructive."

He says an effective ASEAN serves Chinese and US interests long-term and insists the organization remains strong. He dismisses the Phnom Penh tensions as "like a family disagreement ... eventually you come together and emerge stronger".

The challenges, of course, mean he occupies one of the hottest seats in regional diplomacy. While the New York-educated businessman and former ambassador to Washington are highly respected in the US, he cuts a more controversial figure at home and in Beijing.

Some Filipino businessmen have questioned his tactics towards dealing with China while Senator Antonio Trillanes, who is running a back channel to Beijing, has said del Rosario has mis-handled formal negotiations over Scarborough.

Del Rosario has, however, denied reports he will resign and he apparently has Aquino's backing.

Reports in China's state media this week show just how tough a road lies ahead. In news stories outlining last week's appointment to Beijing of new Philippine ambassador Erlinda Basilio, mainland analysts and scholars made it clear that Beijing was in no mood to see Manila "stirring up trouble".

Through it all, del Rosario says he remains "basically an optimist". While he ponders whether Beijing's new leaders will be able to resist the demands of an assertive and nationalistic public, he says: "I'm hoping that China will recognize that being a responsible member of the international community would be a preferable choice to muscle." (http://is.gd/5mywq7)

SCMP

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