Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




ENERGY TECH
United ASEAN urges talks with China over sea rows
by Staff Writers
Phnom Penh (AFP) Nov 18, 2012


Japan needs strong govt to handle China row: media
Tokyo (AFP) Nov 18, 2012 - Japan needs a strong government to handle rows with China and South Korea as the world is losing patience with the county's revolving door politics, a major daily said Sunday ahead of next month's polls.

After six premiers in as many years, local media are hoping for the emergence of a stable government after Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda called snap elections for December 16 which are widely expected to end his centre-left party's three years in power.

The influential Asahi Shimbun said such instability would not help Japan resolve diplomatic problems such as its territorial rows with China, South Korea and Russia.

The Asahi commented that the rest of the world was not following the election so "fervently" as it did in 2009 when the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) toppled the long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

"It may be possibly because they think that a next government will be unstable in any way with yet another short-lived prime minister," the Asahi's commentary said.

"Even in China, it is often heard saying recently: 'It is impossible to pursue serious diplomacy with Japan'."

Tokyo and Beijing are locked in a row over the sovereignty of an archipelago in the East China Sea, while Japan and South Korea are in dispute over who owns a pair of islands in waters between the two countries.

Japan also has a longstanding dispute with Russia over the Kuril islands.

"If we don't have a stable, strong government on our side, (other) territorial issues with Russia and South Korea as well as the problem of (US) military bases on Okinawa cannot find a way out," the Asahi said.

The mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun blamed the Democratic Party's "numerous cases of mismanagement" on its insistence on ending bureaucrats' decades-long control over policy making.

"As a result, bureaucrats have passively waited for orders while important information failed to reach politicians," the conservative daily said in an editorial.

The Yomuri noted that the DPJ had managed to achieve only 30 percent of the 173 policy measures it pledged before taking power with promises to put emphasis on people's well-being.

The DPJ's approval rating has dipped from 75 percent when Yukio Hatoyama served as prime minister in 2009 to 24 percent as Noda currently reigns as its third premier, according to the daily's polls.

Japan's next government will have "many things to do" to help refloat the domestic economy by dragging it out of deflation and stopping a decline in its international competitiveness, the business daily Nikkei said.

Southeast Asian nations urged China on Sunday to quickly begin top-level talks over tense sea territorial disputes, after forging a united position on how to tackle their giant neighbour.

Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations made their bid to break the impasse over China's claims to nearly all of the South China Sea as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Cambodia for an annual summit.

"On the ASEAN side, (we are) ready, willing and very much committed but it takes two to tango," ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan told reporters after the Southeast Asian leaders held their own talks in Phnom Penh.

"The ASEAN side is ready and waiting for our Chinese friends to come forward."

He said the ASEAN leaders wanted to begin "more formal and official" talks on a legally binding code of conduct aimed at easing tensions in the South China Sea "as soon as possible".

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen raised the proposal with Wen during a bilateral meeting on Sunday night, however China appeared to give no ground.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters after the meeting that China wanted to continue with the current framework of lower-level negotiations that were agreed on a decade ago.

"We already have good discussions with ASEAN," Qin said.

ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as Taiwan, have claims to parts of the sea, which is home of some of the world's most important shipping lanes and believed to be rich in fossil fuels.

But China insists it has sovereign rights to virtually all of the sea.

The rival claims have for decades made the sea a powderkeg issue in the region. Tensions have steadily risen over the past two years amid concerns from some ASEAN countries that China is becoming increasingly aggressive.

Efforts to secure a legally binding code of conduct involving ASEAN and China have floundered for years amid Beijing's preference for handling disputes with individual countries.

China and ASEAN signed a broad declaration in 2002 on how parties should handle their disputes over the South China Sea, in which they committed to resolve the issues peacefully and through friendly consultations.

Qin said China wanted to continue working under the framework of that agreement, commonly known as the "DOC".

"We are loyal to the DOC and we will sincerely implement the DOC with our ASEAN partners. This is our consistent position. There is no change," Qin said.

However some ASEAN countries complain that the DOC is not legally binding, and has not prevented the recent diplomatic spats.

The sea row also caused major divisions within ASEAN this year.

Cambodia, a close China ally that has held the ASEAN chair this year, resisted efforts by the Philippines and Vietnam to take a more aggressive position against the Chinese.

But in the lead-up to and during their annual summit in Phnom Penh on Sunday, ASEAN leaders emphasised their intent to present a unified stance to China.

South China Sea: a decades-long source of tension
Phnom Penh (AFP) Nov 18, 2012 - Rival claims to the South China Sea have for decades been a source of tension in the region.

The disputes are expected to be on the agenda during three days of talks involving the region's leaders that began in Cambodia on Sunday. Below are key facts on the sea and the competing claims:

GEOGRAPHY

The South China Sea covers more than 3 million square kilometres (1.16 million square miles) on the western edge of the Pacific, with China and Taiwan to the north, the Philippines to the east, Borneo island to the south, and Vietnam to the west.

It contains hundreds of small islands, islets and rocks, most of which are uninhabited. The Paracel and Spratly chains contain the biggest islands.

SIGNIFICANCE

The sea is the main maritime link between the Pacific and Indian oceans, giving it enormous trade and military value. Its shipping lanes connect East Asia with Europe and the Middle East.

Major unexploited oil and gas deposits are believed to lie under the seabed.

The sea is home to some of world's biggest coral reefs and, with marine life being depleted close to coasts, it is becoming increasingly important as a source of fish to feed growing populations.

CLAIMANTS

China and Taiwan both claim nearly all of the sea, while Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei each have often overlapping claims to parts of it.

China's claim is based on a historical map of "nine dashes" that approaches the coast of other countries. But rival countries complain the dashes are kept deliberately vague so that no one knows China's exact claims.

NAME

Beijing and most other countries know it as the South China Sea. Hanoi calls it the East Sea and Manila officially refers to it as the West Philippine Sea.

OCCUPATION/CONTROL

China has held all of the Paracel islands since a conflict with South Vietnam in 1974 that left 53 Vietnamese military personnel dead.

Vietnam is believed to occupy or control more than 20 of the Spratly islands and reefs, the most of any claimant.

Taiwan has a garrison controlled by its coastguard on Itu Aba island, which is called Taiping in Chinese and is the largest in the Spratlys. Taiwan announced in July it would deploy longer-range artillery there.

The Philippines occupies nine of the Spratlys, including Thitu island, the second largest in the area. The Philippines has a military presence and civilians living on Thitu, which it calls Pagasa.

China occupies at least seven of the Spratlys including Johnson Reef, which it gained after a naval battle with Vietnam in 1988.

Malaysia occupies three of the Spratlys. The most significant presence is on Swallow Reef, called Layang Layang Island in Malaysia, where it has a naval post and a diving resort.

Brunei does not occupy any land formation but claims a submerged reef and a submerged bank in the Spratlys.

TENSIONS -- CHINA/VIETNAM

Aside from the 1974 battle for the Paracels, the only other major conflict occurred when Vietnam and China fought a naval battle on Johnson Reef in the Spratlys in 1988 that left 70 Vietnamese military personnel dead.

However, Chinese naval vessels have fired at other times on Vietnamese fishing boats in the area.

In 2011, Vietnam accused Chinese marine surveillance vessels of cutting an oil survey ship's exploration cables, sparking nationalist protests in Vietnamese cities.

In June this year, Vietnam passed a law proclaiming its jurisdiction over all of the Paracel and Spratly islands, triggering Chinese protests.

At about the same time China announced it had created a new city, Sansha, on one of the Paracel islands, which would administer Chinese rule over its South China Sea domain.

TENSIONS -- CHINA/PHILIPPINES

In 1995, China began building structures on Mischief Reef, within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

Tensions between the two nations started to ratchet up significantly in March 2011, when Chinese vessels harassed a Philippine-chartered gas exploration vessel at Reed Bank.

The Philippines then accused the Chinese of a pattern of intimidation, including firing warning shots at Filipino fishermen and laying buoys around Philippine-claimed islets.

A stand-off between Chinese and Philippine vessels that began in April this year at Scarborough Shoal further inflamed tensions. Philippine Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario accused China of "duplicity" and "intimidation".

DIPLOMACY

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China adopted a non-binding "declaration of conduct" in 2002 to discourage hostile acts.

But attempts to turn it into a legally binding "code of conduct" have failed.

The dispute has created divisions within ASEAN. A meeting of foreign ministers in July ended for the first time in the bloc's 45-year history without a joint statement because of infighting over the issue.

Meeting host Cambodia, a China ally, rejected a Philippine push for the statement to take a harder line against the Chinese.

* Data drawn from AFP's archives, International Crisis Group reports and www.globalsecurity.org.

.


Related Links
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








ENERGY TECH
Shale energy production spike revolutionising energy sector
London (AFP) Nov 18, 2012
A spike in shale oil and gas production is revolutionising the energy sector and risks weighing on prices of conventional crude, according to industry experts. A forecast last week by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that the United States would become the world's biggest oil producer by 2017 thanks to an explosion in hard-to-reach energy trapped in shale, or sedimentary rock, has trigg ... read more


ENERGY TECH
China's Chang'e-3 to land on moon next year

Moon crater yields impact clues

Study: Moon basin formed by giant impact

NASA's LADEE Spacecraft Gets Final Science Instrument Installed

ENERGY TECH
NASA Rover Providing New Weather and Radiation Data About Mars

CU LASP package ready for MAVEN integration bound for Mars

Instrument Delivered for NASA's Upcoming Mars Mission

Melt water on Mars could sustain life

ENERGY TECH
NASA Selects Information Technology Flight Operations Support Contract

SciTechTalk: All work and no play?

Get some bed rest - all 21 days of it

Latest China military hardware displayed at airshow

ENERGY TECH
Mr Xi in Space

China plans manned space launch in 2013: state media

China to launch manned spacecraft

Tiangong 1 Parked And Waiting As Shenzhou 10 Mission Prep Continues

ENERGY TECH
Space station command changes

Russia restores space contact after cable rupture

Russia loses contact with satellites, space station

Cut in Russian link to space station not serious: NASA

ENERGY TECH
Arianespace's fourth Spaceport mission with Soyuz ready for fueling

Ariane 5's sixth launch of 2012

Ariane 5 is poised for Arianespace's launch with the EUTELSAT 21B and Star One C3 satellites

Ariane 5 orbits EUTELSAT 21B and Star One C3 satellites

ENERGY TECH
Lowell astronomer, collaborators point the way for exoplanet search

A Reborn Planetary Nebula

Lost in Space: Rogue Planet Spotted?

Lowell Astronomer, Collaborators Point The Way For Exoplanet Search

ENERGY TECH
Titan is also a green powerhouse

Google's Android is eating Apple's lunch

AVX Introduces SMD Tantalum Chip Capacitors For Aerospace Applications

Google's Android is eating Apple's lunch




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement