Tag Archives: Tensions

China brushes off doubts over support on South China Sea, says it is growing

South China Sea

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday brushed off doubts about how many countries have offered support for its position in a case brought by the Philippines over Chinese claims in the South China Sea, saying the number of nations was growing daily.

China has stepped up its rhetoric ahead of an expected ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague on the Philippine case. China refuses to recognize the case and says all disputes should be resolved through bilateral talks.

China says more than 40 countries have offered support for its position, the most recent being Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka.

But only eight countries have come out in public support, including land-locked nations such as Niger and Afghanistan, says Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official voiced scepticism at China’s claim that dozens of countries were backing its position, saying it was not clear even about what those countries may have agreed to.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said public reports showed at least 47 countries offering support, though the figure was not complete as some nations’ backing had not been publicly reported.

“The number of people supporting China rises by the day, so I have no way of giving you a precise figure,” she told a daily news briefing, adding that the actual number was not the most important thing.

“As long as you have an objective and impartial position, as long as you understand the main points of the history of the South China Sea and the essence of the so-called ‘arbitration case’, any unbiased country, organization or person will unhesitatingly chose China’s just position,” she said.

China claims almost all of the energy-rich South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of maritime trade passes each year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims.

The Philippines is contesting China’s claim to an area shown on its maps as a nine-dash line stretching deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia, covering hundreds of disputed islands and reefs and encompassing a vital global trade route.

The consensus among officials and analysts is that the ruling will go largely against Beijing.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

drcolbert.monthly

In Jerusalem’s cramped Old City, Christians feel the squeeze

Christian man sitting in Jerusalem's Old City

By Sleiman Jad

JERUSALEM, June 21 (Reuters) – – When hundreds of Jewish nationalists marched through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City this month, waving banners and chanting songs in what has become an annual ritual, it wasn’t only Muslims watching warily. Christians were, too.

Religious tension is nothing new in a city that has been the home of three faiths for centuries. But the outlook for the Christian minority, squeezed inside the ancient walls of the Old City and caught in the midst of a months-long wave of violence involving Muslims targeting Jews, has seldom looked tougher.

While the Muslim population rises steadily, now making up 75 percent of the 38,000 residents in the city’s alleys, and the Jews increasingly make their presence felt via the annual march and their settlements beyond the Jewish Quarter, the number of Christians has not risen in 50 years, hovering around 7,000.

“If a thousand Muslims leave Jerusalem, that’s one thing,” said Jamal Khader, head of the Latin Patriarchate Seminary near Bethlehem. “But if a thousand Christians leave, you threaten the identity of Jerusalem as a city of multiple faiths.”

That concern is clear to Basil Saed, 28, the owner of a gym in the Christian Quarter. After an attempted stabbing by a Muslim in the Old City several weeks ago, Saed came face-to-face with an Israeli military policeman hunting for the suspect.

“He was trembling he was so terrified,” said Saed, a prize-winning weightlifter who wears a large gold cross around his neck. “In an instant he could have shot and killed me.”

To Saed, both Israel’s tight security and the Muslim unrest make him uneasy, and raise questions for his community.

“If we weren’t strong, we’d all be gone by now,” he said.

SQUEEZED OUT

In the narrow, cobbled streets of their quarter, Christian families have been running arts and souvenir shops for generations, earning money from the steady flow of religious and other tourists who flock to sites like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Jesus is believed to have been buried.

With the surge in violence that Jerusalem and surrounding areas have experienced since last October, tourism has become more erratic. Anecdotally, locals and tour guides say visitor numbers have dropped off sharply, hurting trade.

Residents like Youseph Shbeita, 35, the third generation owner of a religious icon shop near the Holy Sepulchre, are determined to hang on, seeing no option. But they can understand why younger Christians would want to leave.

“When you’re in the minority, you have to go with the flow,” he said, expressing a sense of responsibility for trying to preserve a Christian presence in the city where Jesus preached. “We just hope for calm, always for calm.”

Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer and activist who closely follows the community, said he feared it was being squeezed out by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with its tendency to focus on the Jewish and Muslim narratives.

“Since much of the epicenter of this round of violence has been in and around the Old City, it has increased their vulnerability,” he said, pointing to the lack of political and social institutions for Christians to depend on.

“I think it’s safe to say there are more Christian Palestinians in Chicago today than there are in Jerusalem.”

Most of the Christians in Jerusalem are Palestinians. Historically, the community has played a prominent role in the opposition to Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, putting it at odds with Israel.

Inside the walls of the Old City, however, there is still a degree of mutual dependence – Muslim merchants run stores on land owned by the Christian church, and Israeli Jews stop to buy fruit or a felafel from Muslim and Christian stallkeepers.

Even so, Saed, the weightlifter, doesn’t feel confident.

“For now, the Muslims and Jews are fighting each other,” he said. “But when they stop they’ll both look at us.”

(Reporting by Jad Sleiman; Editing by Luke Baker/Mark Heinrich)

U.S. navy chief hopes carriers deter East Asia destabilization

U.S. Navy in Philippine Sea

By David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Navy chief said on Monday he hoped the deployment of two aircraft carriers on a training mission in East Asia would deter any attempts to destabilize the region, where military tensions have risen amid China’s growing assertiveness.

The U.S. carriers John C. Stennis and Ronald Reagan began joint operations in seas east of the Philippines at the weekend in a show of strength ahead of an international court ruling expected soon on China’s expansive territorial claims in the contested South China Sea.

Admiral John Richardson, the chief of U.S. Naval Operations, told a Washington think tank it was not often the United States had two carrier strike groups in the same waters and it was a sign of U.S. commitment to regional security.

He referred to a similar deployment of a second U.S. carrier in the Mediterranean Sea last week, at a time when U.S. officials are raising alarm over Russia’s maritime expansion.

“Both here and in the Mediterranean, it’s a signal to everyone in the region that we’re committed, we’re going to be there for our allies, to reassure them and for anyone who wants to destabilize that region,” he told the Center for a New American Security.

“And we hope that there’s a deterrent message there as well.”

Richardson said China’s large-scale land reclamation in the South China Sea and militarization of artificial islands extended its potential ability to deny access to a region with precision missiles and radar, something that “demands a response.”

“Our response would be to inject a lot of friction into that system. Every step of that way, we would look to make that much more difficult,” Richardson said.

The U.S. Pacific Command said the Stennis and the Ronald Reagan started their dual operations on Saturday, including air defense drills, sea surveillance, defensive air combat training and long-range strikes.

A PACOM statement quoted Rear Admiral John D. Alexander, commander of the Ronald Reagan carrier group, as saying it was an opportunity to practice techniques needed “to prevail in modern naval operations.”

“The U.S. Navy has flown, sailed and operated throughout the Western Pacific in accordance with international law for decades, and will continue to do so,” he said, referring to a series of freedom-of-navigation operations carried out by U.S. naval ships in the region in recent month to challenge China’s claims.

PACOM said the United States last conducted a dual carrier operation in the Western Pacific in 2014. Two carriers operated in the South China Sea and East China Sea in 2012.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Andrew Hay)