MANILA, Philippines: The Philippines has protested a new Chinese law that authorizes its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels and destroy other countries’ structures on islands it claims, Manila’s top diplomat said Wednesday.
Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said in a tweet that the new Chinese law “is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies” it. Failure to challenge the law “is submission to it,” he said.
“While enacting law is a sovereign prerogative, this one — given the area involved, or for that matter the open South China Sea — is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies the law,” Locsin said.
China’s Coast Guard Law, which was passed on Friday, empowers the force to “take all necessary measures, including the use of weapons, when national sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction are being illegally infringed upon by foreign organizations or individuals at sea.”
The law also authorizes the coast guard to demolish other countries’ structures built on reefs and islands claimed by China and to seize or order foreign vessels illegally entering China’s territorial waters to leave.
The Chinese law raises the stakes and the possibility of clashes with regional maritime rivals.
China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, have been locked in territorial rivalries in the South China Sea in tense decades-long standoffs. Indonesian forces also have had confrontations with the Chinese coast guard and fishing flotillas in what Indonesian officials say are their territorial waters near the South China Sea.
The United States has no claims in the strategic waterway but its naval forces have challenged China’s territorial claims over virtually the entire sea. China has warned the US to stay away from what it says is a purely Asian dispute.
Tensions flared in recent years after China transformed seven disputed reefs in the Spratlys, the most hotly contested region in the South China Sea, into missile-protected island bases, including three with military-grade runways. China and Southeast Asian nations have been negotiating a regional “code of conduct” to discourage aggression in the disputed waters but the talks have been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
China’s coast guard is also active in the vicinity of uninhabited East China Sea islands controlled by Japan but claimed by Beijing.
Philippines protests new China law as ‘verbal threat of war’
https://arab.news/4fzef
Philippines protests new China law as ‘verbal threat of war’
- Chinese law raises the stakes and the possibility of clashes with regional maritime rivals
- China and Southeast Asian nations have been negotiating a regional ‘code of conduct’ to discourage aggression in the disputed waters
Bangladesh’s religio-political party open to unity govt
- Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years
DHAKA: A once-banned Bangladeshi religio-political party, poised for its strongest electoral showing in February’s parliamentary vote, is open to joining a unity government and has held talks with several parties, its chief said.
Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years as it marks a return to mainstream politics in the predominantly Muslim nation of 175 million.
Jamaat last held power between 2001 and 2006 as a junior coalition partner with the BNP and is open to working with it again.
“We want to see a stable nation for at least five years. If the parties come together, we’ll run the government together,” Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman said in an interview at his office in a residential area in Dhaka, days after the party created a buzz by securing a tie-up with a Gen-Z party.
Rahman said anti-corruption must be a shared agenda for any unity government.
The prime minister will come from the party winning the most seats in the Feb. 12 election, he added. If Jamaat wins the most seats, the party will decide whether he himself would be a candidate, Rahman said.
The party’s resurgence follows the ousting of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a youth-led uprising in August 2024.
Rahman said Hasina’s continued stay in India after fleeing Dhaka was a concern, as ties between the two countries have hit their lowest point in decades since her downfall.
Asked about Jamaat’s historical closeness to Pakistan, Rahman said: “We maintain relations in a balanced way with all.”
He said any government that includes Jamaat would “not feel comfortable” with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was elected unopposed with the Awami League’s backing in 2023.
