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On Friday, Vietnam and the Philippines agreed to deepen protection and navy relations and collaborate on maritime safety, not lengthy earlier than Chinese language and Philippine vessels as soon as once more collided close to a disputed shoal within the South China Sea.
Following a gathering between Vietnamese Protection Minister Gen. Phan Van Giang and his Philippine counterpart Gilberto Teodoro in Manila, the 2 sides introduced that they have been aiming to signal a memorandum of understanding on protection cooperation earlier than the top of 2024, Reuters reported.
“The ministers expressed their unwavering dedication to deepen protection and navy cooperation via continued interplay and engagements in any respect ranges,” the Philippine Division of Protection stated in an announcement.
It added that Giang and Gilberto additionally signed “letters of intent” geared toward enhancing engagements in catastrophe response and navy drugs. In addition they agreed to “resolve all disputes by peaceable means, in accordance with worldwide regulation, notably the United Nations Conference on the Regulation of the Sea.”
Giang additionally paid a courtesy name on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., throughout which the 2 sides mentioned “the strengthening of the bilateral relations between the Philippines and Viet Nam,” the Protection Division stated. Giang’s go to to Manila, his first since his appointment as protection minister in 2021, was supposed “to materialize the widespread understandings” throughout Marcos’s state go to to Hanoi in January, in keeping with a Vietnamese state media report cited by Radio Free Asia.
Throughout a joint press briefing, Nikkei Asia reported that Gilberto stated that the 2 sides “undertake to signal a memorandum on protection cooperation inside this yr,” hopefully in time for the celebration of the eightieth anniversary of the founding of the Vietnamese armed forces on December 22.
Such an settlement may see Vietnam and the Philippines strengthen their joint maritime cooperation within the face of China’s rising assertiveness within the South China Sea, the place each nations have overlapping claims. Throughout a joint press briefing, Teodoro stated that the 2 nations confronted “widespread threats” – a seeming reference to China – and that they’d “work collectively in dealing with these threats within the spirit of ASEAN solidarity.”
The character of this menace has change into ever extra obvious over the previous two years, because the China Coast Guard (CCG) has intensified its sample of incursions into the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile Unique Financial Zone. Till lately, Beijing’s stress marketing campaign targeted on Second Thomas Shoal, and was geared toward stopping the PCG and Philippine Navy from resupplying the unit of marines stationed aboard a grounded warship on the shoal.
The scenario has calmed at Second Thomas Shoal since an incident on June 17, during which a Filipino sailor misplaced a thumb throughout a melee with CCG personnel. The 2 sides subsequently agreed on a “provisional association” that allowed for the peaceable resupply of the Philippine garrison at Second Thomas Shoal. However the locus of Chinese language stress has merely shifted to Sabina Shoal, which lies round 60 kilometers to the east, and a few 140 kilometers off the coast of the Philippines’ westernmost island, Palawan.
Certainly, the day after Giang and Gilberto put pen to paper in Manila, China and the Philippines once more exchanged accusations after a collision between CCG and Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels within the neighborhood of Sabina Shoal.
PCG spokesperson Jay Tarriela on Saturday claimed that CCG vessel 5205 had “straight and deliberately rammed” the 97-metre BRP Teresa Magbanua, one of many PCG’s largest coast guard cutters. No accidents have been reported. In a separate assertion, the Division of Protection condemned China’s “unprovoked aggression” and stated that it “stays steadfast in upholding its sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction within the West Philippine Sea.” (The latter is the time period Manila makes use of for its portion of the South China Sea.)
A CCG spokesperson rapidly turned the accusation again on Manila, claiming that it was really a Philippine ship, “illegally stranded” on the shoal, which had “intentionally rammed” a Chinese language vessel. He pledged that the CCG ” will take the measures required to resolutely thwart all acts of provocation, nuisance and infringement and resolutely safeguard the nation’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and pursuits.”
That is the third such confrontation at Sabina Shoal over the previous month, after Philippine and Chinese language vessels collided on August 25 and August 19.
This intensifying Chinese language stress has prompted a rising strategic convergence between Manila and Hanoi, one thing that has been inhibited for a very long time by the excellent disputes that these nations have with one another within the South China Sea. Final month, a Vietnamese coast guard ship arrived within the Philippines for a four-day go to that concerned joint workouts. In June of this yr, Vietnam stated that it was prepared to carry talks with the Philippines to settle their overlapping claims to the undersea continental shelf within the South China Sea.
On the identical time, Vietnam and the Philippines proceed to take fairly totally different approaches to their maritime disputes with China. Manila has chosen to defy China’s stress marketing campaign and to strengthen its relations with its safety ally, the US, and different shut companions together with Australia and Japan. Vietnam, dwelling in a lot nearer political, geographic, and cultural proximity to China, has managed to specific opposition to Chinese language actions deemed to infringe its sovereignty, whereas reassuring Beijing of its peaceable intentions, a necessity given the financial and political significance of its relationship with China. In consequence, China has seemingly turned a blind eye to Vietnam’s substantial growth of its options within the Spratly Islands, whereas reacting with extra drive to minor actions by the Philippines.
Regardless of their very own unresolved maritime disputes, and their differing approaches to the South China Sea, Vietnam and the Philippines each stand to achieve from nearer maritime cooperation. The signing of a protection settlement by the top of the yr may function proof that Manila and Hanoi’s unresolved disputes aren’t any bar to better unity within the face of Chinese language assertiveness.
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