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01-02-2024
MANILA/ HANOI: Vietnam and the Philippines have agreed to cooperate on maritime security in the South China Sea that is claimed by Beijing almost in its entirety.
The deals, signed during a state visit to Hanoi by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Tuesday, will see the two countries’ coastguards working together to prevent and manage incidents in the disputed waters.
The South China Sea is at the centre of territorial tussles between China, the Philippines and other countries. China claims almost the entire sea as its sovereign territory, while the Philippines, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations claim various islands, islets, reefs and shoals around their coasts.
An estimated $5 trillion in international trade passes through the waters each year.
Tensions between the Philippines, a United States ally, and China have intensified in recent months.
At the end of last year, the Philippines accused China of “swarming” the Whitsun Reef off its coast. China, for its part, accused the Philippines of “provocations” at disputed Second Thomas Shoal where Manila has complained about the Chinese coast guard’s use of water cannons, a military-grade laser and dangerous blocking maneuvers leading to ship collisions.
Earlier this month, China held military drills in the South China Sea as the US and the Philippines conducted their own joint exercises in the same waters.
The high-seas face-offs are fueling fears of a wider conflict.
Vietnam and the Philippines have signed two agreements on “incident prevention in the South China Sea” and “maritime cooperation” among coastguards, said a Vietnamese official.
The deals could irritate Beijing, particularly if they pave the way to compromises between the signatories on their own competing claims.
Marcos said Vietnam was “the sole strategic partner of the Philippines” in Southeast Asia, stressing that maritime cooperation was the foundation of that relationship.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said Marcos’s visit had helped boost bilateral relations.
“The world and regional situation is evolving in a rapid and complicated manner and therefore we need to unite and cooperate more closely,” he said.
The two countries’ leaders met after foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met in Laos and “underscored the importance of the full and effective” implementation of the declaration on conduct in the South China Sea that the bloc agreed with China in 2002 and 2012. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
