Spratlys not major news in US, European newspapers; STAR's 25th anniversary

Last Thursday I scanned my favorite newspapers and magazines online - I was surprised that there was nothing on the Spratly issue. I scanned the New York Times, London Telegraph, the New Yorker, Guardian and the Economist there was no mention of the Spratly problem. I found that strange for a problem described by American and Filipino officials in local newspapers as a major issue that deserved international attention.

There was some mention in some newspapers including the China Daily but the story was on the agreement reached between China and Asean to implement guidelines for a Declaration on the Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.

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In contrast, in President Aquino’s state of the nation he warned China that the Philippines would defend Spratly Islands claims by acquiring more weapons and would elevate the territorial feuds to a UN tribunal.

Those are fighting words not matched by reality. Would it help us or our claim? My own view is that it was completely out of tune. While our neighbors, including Vietnam, were busy working for a unified stand in Bali, the Philippines was taking a warpath of its own.

The issue is not whether we would and should defend our claim. That is a given. In pursuing our claims we should speak and act in tune with the rest of the region. If an agreement had been reached the Philippine interest should find a way to pursue its claim within the framework of the Bali agreement.

There is a Pilipino word to describe this veering away and talking about “war” instead (because that is what the President’s Sona insinuates.) It is sintonado meaning it is out of tune and may have raised some eyebrows among more knowledgeable Asians.

It is important that the Philippines is seen to be a reliable Asian partner. We may have America on our side but it is not enough. While welcoming American support we must be as assiduous in continuing to cultivate good relations with China as our other neighbors in the region have.

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In his book India’s China War, Neville Maxwell, a former Times correspondent in New Delhi writes on an unusual insight from William Bundy, an American foreign policy adviser. Bundy concluded it is “a fearful view of China that is the main factor behind the mistaken 1964-65 escalation in Vietnam.”

Maxwell writes he should have gone farther and argues that “this fearful view of China was also what drove hostilities between China and India.”

Hatreds and fears were encouraged and became part of policy in foreign affairs.

“In effect, once the decision is made that country A is the enemy, information to the contrary is suppressed by the bureaucracy leaving the politicians and the general public free to wallow in the fantasies of their imagination. The belief that China was responsible for the 1962 fighting led inexorably to Australian readiness to intervene in Vietnam to stop “the downward thrust of China,” Maxwell continues.

He thinks Nehru seems to have lost control of the situation and allowed himself to be swept along by the intense and irrational nationalistic passions generated throughout the country.

Back to the Philippines. Our policymakers could learn how China resolves border conflicts. The Spratly conflict with China will not be solved by warlike statements. We must avoid the “fearful view” that Maxwell wrote about if we are to find solutions.

He traced how the war developed using day to day accounts of the Indian military and how these ultimately led to “the futile attack on the Chinese in the Dhola Strip area.” The author calls it a classic in historical suspense.

Maxwell says reports made by the Western press and academic establishments were distorted to fit in their ideas on the communist-anti communist struggle. He was practically alone in refusing “to accept uncritically the official Indian account of events.”

“At the time it was not difficult to realize that something was very wrong with the Indian statement of their dispute with China. Peking had all but declared openly it would renounce its not inconsiderable claim to the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA), by far the largest and most valuable of the territories in dispute. Its claim to the Aksai Chin region in the west seemed strong, and it was clearly moving towards an AksaiChin/NEFA exchange as a basis for settling the dispute.”

Unfortunately, Delhi rejected this proposal, and demanded a complete Chinese evacuation of the Aksai Chin. During 1962 India began openly to move troops into the disputed territory to force the Chinese from positions they already occupied. Chinese protests that this would inevitably lead to serious clashes were ignored.

When the Chinese moved to repel the advancing Indians from Dhola Strip Canberra denounced “Chinese aggression” and pledged unconditional support to India.

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I used to complain about the New York Times Sunday issue as impossible to read in one day. It was so thick it could not get in through my hotel door while in New York. But it was worthwhile reading except that I took a week to read it from cover to cover.

I learned how to read it by selecting only the sections I was interested in. Imagine my surprise when the STAR 25th anniversary issue was of the same size and weight. The STAR of that day had more than 200 pages, a feat no other newspaper in town ever had.

How far the STAR has gone is owed to the careful management of the Belmonte boys. When their late mom, STAR founder Betty Go Belmonte died, she would not have imagined what she had bequeathed to her sons.

She must be smiling from heaven (because she was so saintly) and proud of her sons -- Miguel, Isaac and Kevin -- who have made the STAR the country’s no. 1 newspaper.