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Pedro Gonçalves

Insight - Conflict looms in South China Sea oil rush | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...lippines-idUKTRE81R03820120228

China Philippines South China Sea Oil US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 28 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • The March 2011 incident is considered a turning point for the Aquino administration. The president hardened his stance on sovereignty rights, sought closer ties with Washington and has quickened efforts to modernise its military.
  • A year later, Forum Energy is planning to return. Top company executives told Reuters the company intends to sail to Reed Bank within months to drill the area's first well for oil and natural gas in decades, an event that could spark a military crisis for Aquino if China responds more aggressively.
  • The U.S. military has also signalled its return to the area, with war games scheduled in March with the Philippine navy near Reed Bank that China is bound to view as provocative."This will be a litmus test of where China stands on the South China Sea issue," said Ian Storey, a fellow at the Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. "They could adopt the same tactics as they did last year and harass the drilling vessels, or they might even take a stronger line against them and send in warships."
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  • A decades-old territorial squabble over the South China Sea is entering a new and more contentious chapter, as claimant nations search deeper into disputed waters for energy supplies while building up their navies and military alliances with other nations, particularly with the United States.Reed Bank, claimed by both China and the Philippines, is just one of several possible flashpoints in the South China Sea that could force Washington to intervene in defence of its Southeast Asian allies
Pedro Gonçalves

Firepower bristles in South China Sea as rivalries harden | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...chinasea-idUKBRE85D04T20120614

US China Military South China Sea South East Asia

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • In the early years of China's rise to economic and military prowess, the guiding principle for its government was Deng Xiaoping's maxim: "Hide Your Strength, Bide Your Time." Now, more than three decades after paramount leader Deng launched his reforms, that policy has seemingly lapsed or simply become unworkable as China's military muscle becomes too expansive to conceal and its ambitions too pressing to postpone.
  • The current row with Southeast Asian nations over territorial claims in the energy-rich South China Sea is a prime manifestation of this change, especially the standoff with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal.
  • In what is widely interpreted as a counter to China's growing influence, the United States is pushing ahead with a muscular realignment of its forces towards the Asia-Pacific region, despite Washington's fatigue with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Pentagon's steep budget cuts.And regional nations, including those with a history of adversarial or distant relations with the United States, are embracing Washington's so-called strategic pivot to Asia.
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  • reports last week in China's state-controlled media and online military websites suggested that the first of a new class of a stealthy littoral combat frigate, the type 056, had been launched at Shanghai's Hudong shipyard with three others under construction.Naval analysts said the new 1,700-tonne ship, armed with a 76mm main gun, missiles and anti-submarine torpedoes, would be ideal for patrolling the South China Sea.These new warships would easily outgun the warships of rival claimants, they said.
  • "Make no mistake, in a steady, deliberate and sustainable way, the United States military is rebalancing and bringing an enhanced capability development to this vital region," Panetta told the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security conference in Singapore attended by civilian and military leaders from Asia-Pacific and Western nations.
  • As part of the strategic pivot unveiled in January, the United States will deploy 60 per cent of its warships in the Asia-Pacific, up from 50 per cent now. They will include six aircraft carriers and a majority of the U.S. navy's cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships and submarines.
  • As part of his swing through Asia last week, Panetta also visited India and Vietnam in a bid to enhance security ties with two key regional powers that have not been traditional U.S. allies but are increasingly apprehensive about China's rise.At Vietnam's deep water port of Cam Ranh Bay, a key U.S. base during the Vietnam War, Panetta said the use of this harbour would be important to the Pentagon as it moved more ships to Asia.
Pedro Gonçalves

China's military warns of confrontation over seas | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...lippines-idUKBRE83L00P20120422

China US Philippines South China Sea

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • "Anyone with clear eyes saw long ago that behind these drills is reflected a mentality that will lead the South China Sea issue down a fork in the road towards military confrontation and resolution through armed force," said the commentary in the Chinese paper, which is the chief mouthpiece of the People's Liberation Army."Through this kind of meddling and intervention, the United States will only stir up the entire South China Sea situation towards increasing chaos, and this will inevitably have a massive impact on regional peace and stability."
  • In past patches of tension over disputed seas, hawkish Chinese military voices have also risen, only to be reined in later by the government. The same could be true this time.
  • experts have said China remains wary of U.S. military intentions across the Asia-Pacific, especially after the Obama administration's vows to "pivot" to the region, reinvigorating diplomatic and security ties with allies.
Pedro Gonçalves

U.S. Weighs Intercepting North Korean Shipments - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...08korea.html

North Korea US China Terrorism Proliferation Security Initiative Obama Hillary Clinton Robert Gates

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 09 Jun 09 - Cached
  • The Obama administration signaled Sunday that it was seeking a way to interdict, possibly with China’s help, North Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology.
  • The administration also said it was examining whether there was a legal basis to reverse former President George W. Bush’s decision last year to remove the North from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.
  • So far it is not clear how far the Chinese are willing to go to aid the United States in stopping North Korea’s profitable trade in arms, the isolated country’s most profitable export. But the American focus on interdiction demonstrates a new and potentially far tougher approach to North Korea than both President Clinton and Mr. Bush, in his second term, took as they tried unsuccessfully to reach deals that would ultimately lead North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. Mr. Obama, aides say, has decided that he will not offer North Korea new incentives to dismantle the nuclear complex at Yongbyon that the North previously promised to abandon.
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  • “I’m tired of buying the same horse twice,” Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said last week while touring an antimissile site in Alaska that the Bush administration built to demonstrate its preparedness to destroy North Korean missiles headed toward the United States. (So far, the North Koreans have not successfully tested a missile of sufficient range to reach the United States, though there is evidence that they may be preparing for another test of their long-range Taepodong-2 missile.)
  • In France on Saturday, Mr. Obama referred to the same string of broken deals, telling reporters, “I don’t think there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways.” He added, “We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation.”
  • While Mr. Obama was in the Middle East and Europe last week, several senior officials said the president’s national security team had all but set aside the central assumption that guided American policy toward North Korea over the past 16 years and two presidencies: that the North would be willing to ultimately abandon its small arsenal of nuclear weapons in return for some combination of oil, nuclear power plants, money, food and guarantees that the United States would not topple its government, the world’s last Stalinesque regime.
  • Now, after examining the still-inconclusive evidence about the results of North Korea’s second nuclear test, the administration has come to different conclusions: that Pyonyang’s top priority is to be recognized as a nuclear state, that it is unwilling to bargain away its weapons and that it sees tests as a way to help sell its nuclear technology.
  • While Mr. Obama is willing to reopen the six-party talks that Mr. Bush began — the other participants are Japan, South Korea, Russia and China — he has no intention, aides say, of offering new incentives to get the North to fulfill agreements from 1994, 2005 and 2008; all were recently renounced.
  • While some officials privately acknowledged that they would still like to roll back what one called North Korea’s “rudimentary” nuclear capacity, a more realistic goal is to stop the country from devising a small weapon deliverable on a short-, medium- or long-range missile.
  • In conducting any interdictions, the United States could risk open confrontation with North Korea. That prospect — and the likelihood of escalating conflict if the North resisted an inspection — is why China has balked at American proposals for a resolution by the United Nations Security Council that would explicitly allow interceptions at sea. A previous Security Council resolution, passed after the North’s first nuclear test, in 2006, allowed interdictions “consistent with international law.” But that term was never defined, and few of the provisions were enforced.
  • North Korea has repeatedly said it would regard any interdiction as an act of war, and officials in Washington have been trying to find ways to stop the shipments without a conflict. Late last week, James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, visited Beijing with a delegation of American officials, seeking ideas from China about sanctions, including financial pressure, that might force North Korea to change direction.
  • “The Chinese face a dilemma that they have always faced,” a senior administration official said. “They don’t want North Korea to become a full nuclear weapons state. But they don’t want to cause the state to collapse.”
  • To counter the Chinese concern, Mr. Steinberg and his delegation argued to the Chinese that failing to crack down on North Korea would prompt reactions that Beijing would find deeply unsettling, including a greater American military presence in the region and more calls in Japan for that country to develop its own weapons.
  • North Korea’s restoration to the list would be largely symbolic, because it already faces numerous economic sanctions.
Pedro Gonçalves

Analysis - Obama's Asia pivot advances, but obstacles await | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...ic-pivot-idUKBRE85E1B720120615

US China South East Asia

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • the polite fiction employed by Washington serves Asia-Pacific countries who seek security assurances from the far-away United States without sacrificing important trade with nearby China and its fast-growing economy."Treading too forcefully on China's interests can and has resulted in economic reprisals against Southeast Asian countries," said Scott Harrison of Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a consultancy in Manila.
  • Beijing responded last month to its South China Sea dispute with Manila by tightening quality controls on Philippine fruit and cutting the number of visits by Chinese citizens to the Philippines.
  • Some regional security experts, however, say the renewed U.S. emphasis on Asia has emboldened China's opponents in the South China Sea dispute, an outcome Washington might not have intended."The U.S. becoming involved has fired up the Philippines and Vietnam to contest things more strongly," said Sam Bateman, a retired senior Australian naval officer and maritime security researcher at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - China and Russia launch naval exercises in Yellow Sea - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-asia-17803624

China Russia Military Navy South China Sea

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • It is first time the two navies have conducted such drills, although both countries have participated in four military exercises since 2005. They come amid tensions with China's neighbours over territorial claims.
Pedro Gonçalves

International Institute for Strategic Studies 30 May 2009 - Associated Press - Gates: Tougher sanctions against NKorea needed - 0 views

www.iiss.org/...anctions-against-nkorea-needed

North Korea US Robert Gates China South Korea Lee Sang-hee Shangri-La Dialogue

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 09 Jun 09 - No Cached
  • North Korea's yearslong use of scare tactics as a bargaining chip to secure aid and other concessions — only to later renege on promises — has worn thin the patience of five nations negotiating with Pyongyang, said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.   "They create a crisis and the rest of us pay the price to return to the status quo ante," Gates told the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual meeting of defense and security officials. "As the expression goes in the U.S., I'm tired of buying the same horse twice."   "There are other ways perhaps to get the North Koreans to change their approach," Gates said. "I think this notion that we buy our way back to the status quo ante is an approach that I personally at least think we ought to think very hard about."
  • Additionally, the U.N. Security Council is drafting financial and military sanctions against North Korea as punishment for the weapons testing.   Similar sanctions approved after Pyongyang's 2006 atomic test have been only sporadically enforced, and largely ignored by China and Russia.
  • South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee said the talks "could not have come at a better time."   "North Korea perhaps to this point may have mistakenly believed that it could be perhaps rewarded for its wrong behaviors," Lee told reporters. "But that is no longer the case."
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  • Gates does not plan to build up American troops in the region, and said Saturday he currently does not consider North Korea to pose a direct military threat to the United States.
  • Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nonproliferation issues with the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former top U.S. State Department official, said North Korea is likely to respond heatedly to whatever actions the U.S. and allies take to stem the weapons threat.   "North Korea's responses to date have been so far above and beyond the normal tit-for-tat," Fitzpatrick said Saturday. "If they again escalate, I think we could see some low-level conflict, some shooting incidents at sea. But then one can't say, well, we can't respond at all because North Korea might use it as a provocation. North Korea will use any response as a provocation."
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Chinese ships 'quit Korea waters' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8073129.stm

North Korea South Korea China US Robert Gates

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 29 May 09 - Cached
  • Chinese fishing boats are reported to be leaving the tense inter-Korean border in the Yellow Sea after North Korea's threat of military action.
  • "Chinese fishing boats operating near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) began withdrawing yesterday," Yonhap quoted a defence source as saying.
  • More than 280 Chinese vessels were fishing near the NLL for crab earlier this week but the number has fallen to about 140, according to the source.
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  • Speaking at the Andersen US Air Force base, Mr Gates said he saw no need to increase troop levels in South Korea from the current total of 28,000. "I am not aware of any military moves in the North, that are out of the ordinary at least," he said.
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