Philippines and Japan over China

Philippines and Japan over China

by Patricia Piramide

China as a rising power is seeking and making its way to be at par with today’s considered hegemon, United States of America. But, unfortunately, China’s considered manner of reaching the top is mostly through aggression. Now, China is making an issue about their territorial claims that have already affected its relationship with other countries, such as Philippines and Japan. 

Japan and China has its conflict due to their competing claims of the eight uninhabited islands and rocks known as Senkaku islands in Japan and Diaoyu islands in China. The islands have a total of 7 sq km in area and lie north-east of Taiwan, east of the Chinese mainland and south-west of Japan's southern-most prefecture, Okinawa.

Japan based its claim of the islands to that of January 14, 1895 when Japan erected a sovereignty marker and formally incorporated the islands into Japanese territory. And that prior to the establishment of the sovereignty marker, Japan says it surveyed the islands for 10 years in the 19th Century and determined that they were uninhabited.

On the other hand, China and based its claim when the said islands have been part of its territory since ancient times, serving as important fishing grounds administered by the province of Taiwan.

These eight inhabited islands and rocks: Senkaku islands as known in Japan and Diaoyu islands as in China matter because they are close to important shipping lanes, offer rich fishing grounds and lie near potential oil and gas reserves. Up to now, the territorial dispute between China and Japan is still unsettled.

Another unsettled conflict of China with that of another country, the Philippines, which also involves territorial dispute, is the claim of Spratlys or the South China Sea as known for China and West Philippine Sea for the Philippines.

China claims by far the largest portion of territory - an area defined by the "nine-dash line" which stretches hundreds of miles south and east from its most southerly province of Hainan. China also uses historical accounts to legalize their claim and to which they believe that its right to the area goes back centuries to when the Paracel and Spratly island chains were regarded as integral parts of the Chinese nation, and in 1947 it issued a map detailing its claims.

Philippines invokes its geographical proximity based on UNCLOS 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone to the Spratly Islands as the main basis of its claim for part of the grouping. 

Some of the reasons why there are a lot of claimants of Spratly islands are due to its rich reserves of natural resources: hydrocarbons, abundance of marine resources such as fish. Also, due to commercial shipping purposes. 

Now, Japan and the Philippines teamed up against China during a regional security forum most probably because both Japan and the Philippines are undergoing territorial disputes with China. With their cooperation now, four sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, a news agency company, that Japan was looking to offer three Beechcraft TC-90 King Air planes that could be fitted with basic surface and air surveillance radar.

Japan wants to give planes to the Philippines that Manila could use for patrols in the South China Sea, sources said, a move that would deepen Tokyo's security ties with the Southeast Asian nation most at odds with Beijing over the disputed waterway. Actually, Tokyo has no claims in the waterway, but is worried Beijing's new islands will extend Chinese military reach into sea lanes through which much of Japan's ship-borne trade passes.

To resolve these issues through peace talks and/or bilateral agreements should have been much better if only the Chinese government could have been more cooperative and open-minded in addressing and equally compensating each and everyone’s interests for the common good of all the parties concerned.

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