A boy sitting in a vehicle covers his ears as members of the military fire cannons for a traditional 21-gun salute during the 115th Independence Day celebration in Manila June 12, 2013. Amid territorial disputes with its neighbours, including China, in the South China Sea, President Benigno Aquino vowed on Wednesday to stand up for the Philippines' sovereign rights in a speech during the celebration of the country's 115th Independence Day anniversary, local media reported.
President Benigno Aquino (3rd-L) raises the country's flag during a ceremony commemorating the 115th anniversary of the Philippines' independence from foreign rule in Manila on June 12, 2013. In his speech, Aquino said that the Philippines would stand up for its rights even amid territorial disputes with China over part of the South China Sea.
Washington: The recent US-China summit was a success - for Chinese President Xi Jinping. He conceded little and ably cast the meeting on his terms.
President Barack Obama was a polite host, saying nothing to disturb the flow of his better-prepared counterpart. Xi declared the informal summit in California had created a new model of great power relationship, an anchor for world stability and the propeller of world peace. Xinhua went further and called it a lighthouse which will guide others.
Obama seemed like he was being browbeaten into praising this new model of relations and China's peaceful rise. His attempt at a casual, shirtsleeves meeting to develop a personal rapport with Xi has once again proved that for Chinese leaders these niceties ultimately don't matter. They are only useful as a tactic.
Does the new model mean that Obama recognizes China's primacy in Asia where China recently intruded 19 kilometers inside Indian territory, conducted naval exercises just 80 km from Malaysia and at the southernmost edge of its expanding maritime claims in the South China Sea and is engaged in an increasingly loud confrontation with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands? China has de facto occupied Scarborough Shoals claimed by the Philippines by chasing away Philippine fishermen and surrounding the rocks and reefs like a cabbage with warships.
Washington has kept largely quiet as the Philippines, a treaty ally, struggles with limited naval capabilities against Beijing's slow but sure encroachments. With every aggressive outreach, China is testing the limits and creating facts on the water in the South China Sea. American silence seems to indirectly acknowledge its interests. And China's claims and core interests only seem to be expanding.
At the recent meeting Obama said nothing about China's multiple military moves in Asia as Xi wrapped the summit in flowery language and delivered it as a success back home.
If India, Japan and other countries were tuned in to last week's meeting to decipher the future of what was first dubbed as the US pivot to Asia and later mellowed down to strategic rebalancing, they would find the new accommodation between US and China unsettling.
America's Asian partners are already nervous about Chinese territorial claims, which are increasingly backed by military might. The understanding the United States reached with Asia's most powerful nation is thus extremely pertinent.
The (re)emerging US-China equation has a direct bearing on India's interests - it can either enhance or compromise them. India has made some clear moves recently, which are broadly in tune with the ideas of the original US pivot. Obama's briefing book should have had a page on last month's India-Japan summit.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's effusive embrace of his counterpart, Shinzo Abe, was significant and a message to China. Singh emphasized the commonalities - democracy, shared values and public goodwill - all ingredients that are missing in the India-China equation. The warmth was palpable, especially compared to Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang's visit to India in the aftermath of his army's incursion into Indian territory.It was only when India hinted at cancelling Li's visit did Beijing roll its soldiers back.
Protesters wearing fish-shaped hats rally outside the Chinese Consulate in Manila on June 11, 2013. The group held the rally to oppose China's alleged continued intrusion and poaching activities in the South China Sea which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea, with the two countries having a territorial conflict over the body of water since Chinese forces occupied a shoal just off the main Philippine island of Luzon last year.
Le Hoang (C) sings an anti-China song as Ta Tri Hai (R) plays the mandolin by the Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi June 7, 2013. Since the 2011 summer anti-China protests, homeless street musician Ta Tri Hai will play patriotic and anti-Chinese music every evening by the Hoan Kiem Lake in hope to attract more attention to Vietnam's territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, according to local media. Picture taken June 7, 2013.
Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, right, attends a press conference at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Wednesday, June 5, 2013. The U.S. will oppose moves by any country to seize control of disputed areas in the South China Sea by force, the top American military commander in the Pacific said Wednesday, adding that rival claimants might need to seek compromises to resolve the feud over potentially oil-rich territories.
