China joins Balikatan talks on disaster preparedness

MANILA, Philippines - China pulled off a surprise yesterday when it joined a roundtable discussion on disaster preparedness, one of the highlights of this year’s Balikatan exercise between the Philippines and the United States.

China sent two representatives to the event, which was participated in by 11 countries including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan, four of the countries with whom it has a territorial dispute.

Other countries that participated in the roundtable discussion were Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, New Zealand, South Korea and the US, China’s perceived rival.

The event was held yesterday in Camp Aguinaldo to enable security officials in the region to discuss best practices on disaster relief operations.

China was represented by Sr. Col. Wang Jinbo and Maj. Wang Hanbing. They were joined by 30 other senior and mid-level officials from the US and the Asia-Pacific.

Military sources said China was the last country to confirm their attendance to the event. The invitations to the participating countries were sent as early as January but China responded only last Sunday.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), nevertheless, welcomed China’s participation at the event.

“We are happy that China is here so that they could participate and we could have more discussion on how to appropriately address disaster, especially maritime ones,” said Maj. Emmanuel Garcia, spokesman of the Balikatan 2013 exercise.

“We need the cooperation and coordination with other countries because if a maritime disaster happens in international waters, the countries nearest to that place must respond and give humanitarian aid,” he added.

Col. Romeo Brawner, lead planner of the roundtable discussion, said the event could pave way to the opening of Balikatan to other countries.

“We are looking at opening up Balikatan to other countries as well. Now this activity is a start, so to speak, because we’re trying to see how this will go and in fact we’re planning for a similar activity for the years to come,” he said.

Brawner said the event would help build confidence among neighboring countries, including those involved in territorial disputes in the West Philippine Sea.