The US secretary of state has committed Washington to aiding the Philippines in the event of an \u201carmed attack\u201d on its vessels or aircraft in the disputed\u00a0South China Sea, in what some see as a warning shot to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking in Manila after meeting the president,\u00a0Rodrigo Duterte, Mike Pompeo told the Philippines: \u201cWe have your back\u201d and invoked the two countries\u2019 mutual defence treaty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAny armed attack on any Philippine forces, aircraft or public vessels in the South\u00a0China\u00a0Sea will trigger mutual defence obligations under article IV of our mutual defence treaty,\u201d Pompeo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The South China Sea is one of the most contested patches of water in the world, with Brunei, China, Malaysia, the\u00a0Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam with overlapping claims in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pompeo is the first US official to openly affirm the US\u2019s military commitment to defending Philippine sovereignty over the South China Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2016 the Philippines won an international arbitration case against China\u2019s claim over practically the entire South China Sea, which is rich in both fish and potential oil and gas reserves and is a valuable trade route. But\u00a0China did not recognise the ruling\u00a0and has continued to militarise the sea by\u00a0building vast fortresses, with control towers, airstrips and helipads, on reclaimed sand islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pompeo told his Philippine hosts that China\u2019s island building and military activities in the South China Sea \u201cthreaten your sovereignty, security and therefore economic livelihood, as well as that of the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His statement comes two months after the Philippine defence secretary, Delfin Lorenzana, expressed an intent to review the treaty, precisely because of its unclear provisions and a lack of concrete commitment from the US to come to its aid if the South China Sea dispute turns into an armed clash with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lorenzana told reporters on Friday he still wanted a review of the treaty, however, \u201cto get all ambiguities cleared and put in paper as part of the treaty\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\u00a0Philippines\u00a0was once one of the boldest critics of China\u2019s claim over the South China Sea. However, under Duterte Manila has mostly put the territorial dispute to the side, opting for expanded economic and trade links, which some critics have described as a defeatist attitude by the Philippine president.
In response to Pompeo\u2019s remark, at a news conference in Beijing, Lu Kang, a spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs, said there was \u201cnothing to be worried about\u201d and the situation in the South China was increasingly stable.\u00a0
However, he warned that the US should \u201cnot make trouble out of nothing\u201d.\u00a0
\u201cIf outside countries like the US truly consider the peace, stability and welfare of local residents, they should not make waves when there is no wind,\u201d he said. \u201cA country\u2019s own government and people understand better than any other countries what their own advantages are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SOURCE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US secretary of state has committed Washington to aiding the Philippines in the event of an \u201carmed attack\u201d on its vessels or aircraft in the disputed\u00a0South China Sea, in what some see as a warning shot to China. Speaking in Manila after meeting the president,\u00a0Rodrigo Duterte, Mike Pompeo told the Philippines: \u201cWe have your back\u201d and invoked the two… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,105,25,65,33],"class_list":["post-3190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-china","tag-military","tag-philippines","tag-south-china-sea","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3190\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}