Neighborhood bully

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

China's Hainan province that claims to govern 2 million square kilometers of water, including much of the disputed areas of the West Philippine (South China) Sea, is now saying that fishing boats need permission to enter waters under its jurisdiction. According to the website of the local government, Hainan's legislature approved the rules in November and took effect on January 1.

This unwarranted and unilateral move by Beijing that is greedily claiming almost the entire resource-rich South China Sea despite the more valid claims of the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam, will surely escalate tensions in the region, the same way China's creation of a controversial air defense identification zone in late November over the East China Sea, in an area that includes islands that are involved in another territorial dispute with Japan also drew international ire.

The act of pushing through with the adversarial act of implementing fishing rules that would test the relevance of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that includes the concept of Exclusive Economic Zones is a clear violation of an international agreement that China was ironically a signatory to, but has been continually undermining of late.

With the United Nations seemingly powerless and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations unable to come up with a coherent and united stand on how China's provocative actions should be handled, where can the Philippines and the other nations that are disputing the territorial claims of China, as well as the rest of the world that has not seen this level of territory-grabbing in a very long time turn to? Who can stop or even just censure an increasingly belligerent neighbor, China, from arbitrarily imposing “rules” over vast areas of sea and airspace that it does not actually own? How much more unnecessary bullying will the United Nations and the ASEAN allow before they come up with a common stand in a region where the stability is being tested by the country with the most powerful Navy and give the respective claimants a framework where they can settle their differences in a civilized and an internationally acceptable manner?*