Admiral John Aquilino, Commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in an address to the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney that China’s actions against the Philippines, particularly in Second Thomas Shoal, were “dangerous, illegal and they are destabilising the region”.
I thought that the Philippines were explicitly denied the Spratly Islands in their treaty for independence with the US because the Philippines did not hold sovereignty over the Spratlys when they were a Spanish colony? I can understand China and Vietnam’s conflicting claims, but the Philippines sounds like they’re ignoring the first rule of UNCLOS: UNCLOS does not resolve issues of sovereignty and does not supercede existing sovereignty claims.
The Filipino claim on the Spratlys is completely nonsensical. By the same argument, Kinmen should also be Chinese. It’s stupid, insane, and just an opportunity to deflect from the very real territorial dispute between China/Taiwan and Vietnam.
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