Philippines names 4 new camps for US forces amid China fury

China sends spy balloons to the US, the US reestablishes camps in the Philippines with one facing the South China Sea. Got no problem with that the US should have never left to begin with, but whats done is done.

www.aljazeera.com...

China has repeatedly accused Washington of taking steps to contain the Chinese militarily and of driving a wedge between Beijing and its Asian neighbours such as the Philippines.

“Creating economic opportunities and jobs through military cooperation is tantamount to quenching thirst with poison and gouging flesh to heal wounds,” the Chinese embassy in Manila said in a recent statement.

“Such cooperation will seriously endanger regional peace and stability and drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife and damage its economic development at the end of the day,” the embassy said.

US and Philippine forces are due next month to hold one of their largest combat exercises, called Balikatan – Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder.

apnews.com...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine government on Monday identified four new military camps, including some across the sea from Taiwan, where rotating batches of American forces will be allowed to be stationed indefinitely despite strong objections from China.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration announced in February his approval of an expansion of the U.S. military presence to four additional Philippine military bases from the five existing sites under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the longtime treaty allies.

Marcos said the move would boost the Philippines’ coastal defense. It dovetails with the Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan.

The new sites identified by Marcos’ office include a Philippine navy base in Santa Ana and an international airport in Lal-lo, both in northern Cagayan province. Those locations have infuriated Chinese officials because they would provide U.S. forces with a staging ground close to southern China and Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims as its own.

The two other military areas are in northern Isabela province and a navy camp on Balabac island in the western province of Palawan.

Palawan faces the South China Sea, a key passage for global trade that Beijing claims virtually in its entirety and has taken increasingly aggressive actions that have threatened smaller claimant states, including the Philippines.

China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, have been locked in increasingly tense territorial disputes over the busy and resource-rich South China Sea. Washington lays no claims to the strategic waters but has deployed warships and fighter and surveillance aircraft for patrols that it says promote freedom of navigation and the rule of law, angering Beijing.

“That’s a trade route, that’s where more or less $3 trillion worth of trade passes. Our responsibility in collectively securing that is huge,” said Carlito Galvez, who heads the Philippine Defense Department.

The four new military sites for American forces are “suitable and mutually beneficial” and will “boost the disaster response of the country” as a springboard for humanitarian and relief work during emergencies, Marcos’s office said

a reply to: putnam6 if America spoke with such direct language we’d be accused of escalation of rhetoric at the very least. China needs to cool it.

a reply to: ITSALIVE


China needs to recognize international waters begin as well as the established economic zones are in comparison to the territorial seas they suggest are disputed


www.noaa.gov...

Territorial Sea
Each coastal State may claim a territorial sea that extends seaward up to 12 nautical miles (nm) from its baselines. The coastal State exercises sovereignty over its territorial sea, the airspace above it, and the seabed and subsoil beneath it. Foreign flag ships enjoy the right of innocent passage while transiting the territorial sea subject to laws and regulations adopted by the coastal State that are in conformity with the Law of the Sea Convention and other rules of international law relating to such passage. The U.S. claimed a 12 nm territorial sea in 1988 (Presidential Proclamation No. 5928, December 27, 1988).

Contiguous Zone
Each coastal State may claim a contiguous zone adjacent to and beyond its territorial sea that extends seaward up to 24 nm from its baselines. In its contiguous zone, a coastal State may exercise the control necessary to prevent the infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea, and punish infringement of those laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea. Additionally, in order to control trafficking in archaeological and historical objects found at sea, a coastal State may presume that their removal from the seabed of the contiguous zone without its consent is unlawful.

In 1972, the U.S. proclaimed a contiguous zone extending from 3 to 12 miles offshore (Department of State Public Notice 358, 37 Fed. Reg. 11906 (June 15, 1972), consistent with the 1958 UN Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone. In 1999, eleven years after President Reagan extended the U.S. territorial sea to 12 miles, President Clinton proclaimed a contiguous zone extending from 12 to 24 nm offshore (Presidential Proclamation No. 7219, August 2, 1999), consistent with Article 33 of the Law of the Sea Convention.

Here's the weird part: the nine-dash line claim by China to much of the South China Sea is the same as that of Taiwan.