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China prepares welcome for 2014 APEC.

Two embarrassing incidents were in the minds of officials of the Deparment of Foreign Affairs when they decided not to request for a bilateral meeting between President Aquino and Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Nov. 10 and 11 Leaders Meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC to be held in Beijing.

But DFA officials are working on a pull- aside talk between the two leaders on the sidelines of the summit of 21-member organization.

In the forum Wednesday hosted by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, Aquino said: “The Chinese side does not ask for a bilateral talk; the Philippine side does not also ask for it. Both of us, I guess—and I am hopeful—are looking for a solution that can be win-win.”

Foreign Affairs sources said they tried to play it by ear and decided against requesting for a bilateral meeting recalling what happened in the November 2012 APEC summit in Vladivostok, Russia when Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario announced that Aquino and then President Hu Jintao would meet to discuss the South China Sea conflict particularly the tension in Scarborough Shoal, scene of a 57-day standoff between Philippines and Chinese vessels a few months earlier.

Hu never found time to meet with Aquino in Vladivostok.

Xi, who assumed China presidency on March 14, 2013, has never agreed to meet with Aquino.

2013 APEC in Indonesia. Chinese Leader Xi Jinping and President Aquino in separate huddle with other leaders during a break.Will they finally sit down together and talk?

Last September, Aquino announced that he was going to Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to attend the 10th ASEAN-China Expo (CAEXPO), where the Philippines was the country of honor.

Aquino had to forgo the visit when China advised the DFA for the President “to come to China at a more conducive time.”

By that that time, the Philippines had filed a complaint before the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal against China, the first country to have brought the economic superpower before the international court. The Philippines asked the UN court to declare as illegal China’s nine-dashed line map that encroach on the exclusive economic zone of several Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines.

Even at the ministerial level, China has snubbed the Philippines. In the last Asean Regional Forum in Myanmar, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with also all his counterparts including Japan, with whom China has a serious territorial conflict, but not Del Rosario.

Diplomatic sources said there is no confirmation yet on the pull aside meeting (which usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes) between Aquino and Xi.

Sources said if the pull aside meeting would push through Aquino will personally invite Xi to next year’s APEC summit in Manila and suggest re-establishment of bilateral connections.

Philippine-China relations is strained not only by the filing of the case before the UN Court but also by Del Rosario’s “shame China” strategy. At the height of the Scarborough Shoal standoff, Del Rosario accused China’s Ambassador Ma Keqing of “duplicity.” Communications between DFA and the Chinese Embassy practically stopped with the DFA going through U.S. State Department to relay its message to Beijing and China sought the help of a backchannel, Sen. Antonio Trillanes III, to relay its message to Aquino.

In the FOCAP forum, Aquino was asked if he is thinking of a hotline with China just like what China and Vietnam (which also has territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea) have.

Aquino’s reply: “So, will a hotline help? The diplomatic side of me says: ‘Let’s explore that. Why not do that, in the sense that we do have that with the other ASEAN countries, and it really has redounded to quick action on potential incidents between our neighbors and ourselves.’ Now, we’d want to do that also with China to prevent any misunderstanding and miscalculations. ..”

To ease tensions with China, the Aquino administration did what diplomats term as “confidence-building measures.”

Last month, Aquino ordered a stop to all constructions, including a repair of the airstrip in Pag-asa islands, in features controlled by the Philippines in Spratlys. Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said the Philippines “wanted to maintain the moral high ground in terms of the territorial dispute” as it called for a moratorium on all constructions in the disputed islands in South China Sea.

A second media trip to Ayungin Shoal, where the rotting BRP Sierra Madre serves as Philippine Navy outpost, has been postponed indefinitely.

Both Aquino and Del Rosario have also toned down their anti-China rhetorics.

Xi Jinping

The changing of the guards in China is ongoing at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China which started yesterday.

Chinese President Hu Jintao will turn over leadership to Vice President Xi Jinping.

One of the Philippines’ seasoned diplomats, Lauro Baja, formerly the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations talked to some members of media and shared his thoughts on how the Philippines should deal with the “new China.”

Baja, who also served as Foreign Affairs undersecretary for policy, thinks despite the change in leadership, China “will not be able to veer away too much from what is existing now. “

But, he said, “there is now a new dynamic in China, the news is now more vocal, the social media is more vocal and there is a greater degree of nationalism among people in the streets. As a matter of fact they now think and they may be rightly so that they are now the center of the world. “

That reality, he said, must be taken into account by the Philippine policy makers in dealing with China now.

Given the overlapping territorial claims on China and the Philippines, Baja said “we must find ways to either resume dialogue or initiate dialogue on other approaches” because military action is not an option. “ In our dispute or claim, we have no military option and I don’t think parties are thinking of the military option.”

Lauro Baja

Baja laments the “fixation on developing a code of conduct in the South China Sea as an upgrade of the Declaration of the Code of Conduct on the South China Sea.”

“We are making the same objections as we did in the declaration and it is unrealistic to expect that a code could be concluded in the immediate future,” he said.

He pointed out that China has not budged from its view that there should not be an enforcement provision in case of violation and a dispute mechanism.

So how do we go from there?

Baja is not optimistic that the 10-member Association of Southeast Nations,which will have a summit meeting in Cambodia on Nov. 18- 20, would be able to conclude an ASEAN Regional Code of Conduct in the South China Sea and allow parties concerned including China to either accede or adhere to the declaration.

“Maybe that would be a creative approach. After all ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation has been acceded to by China so maybe there’s an example for a new innovative creative approach. But in the UNCLOS (United Nations Commission on the Law of the Sea) itself there are opportunities also for cooperative activities,” Baja said.

Despite the recriminations over the Panatag (Scarborough) shoal early this year, Baja believes the Chinese does not really consider the Philippines an enemy nor do we consider China one.

He said,”the only element which put a ‘fly on the ointment’ is the so-called in the PH-China relations is the perceived excessive dependence of the PH on the US and that’s a sore point to them.”

He related a conversation with recent Chinese visitor Fu Ying, vice minister in China’s foreign ministry who was formerly ambassador to the Philippines.

“ I told Fu Ying, because I know her I was undersecretary of foreign affairs then when she was ambassador here so we could talk frankly. I told her, the trouble with China is you talk to us thru the US why don’t you talk to us directly and we talk to you directly. And she said to me, ‘but you also talk to us thru the US.’

“ So again, that perception must be excised. We cannot deny that we are close to the US we are treaty allies, people-to-people exchanges are substantive but we cannot also deny that geography is immutable, we have a big neighbor to the north who is the second largest economy in the world and with a growing military and a growing international clout in international affairs so the challenge for Philippine diplomacy is to have a nuance approach to the competition, to the rivalry to the so-called boxing match as Pres. Ramos said between China and the US because whether we like it or not the security architecture of the region will be determined to a very large significant factor by the US-China relations.”

Related articles:

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/55590/china-bares-plan-to-be-a-naval-power

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/world/asia/hu-jintao-exiting-communist-leader-cautions-china.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Category: Xi Jinping

No formal meeting but Aquino hopes for pull-aside talk with Xi Jinping in APEC

Veteran diplomat Lauro Baja on the ‘New China’