By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat Perspective | Bulatlat.com In his state of the nation address in July 2011, President Benigno Aquino III gave a fiery, saber-rattling speech warning China that the government is ready to defend the country against intrusions into its territory, specifically referring to Recto bank, a groups of small islands at the West…
Tags: Spratly Islands
Progressive groups slam Aquino government’s ‘double standard’ in dealing with Sabah standoff

By MARYA SALAMAT
Bayan regards this double standard in handling the Sabah and Spratlys/Panatag Shoal issues as a demonstration of the Aquino government’s “deceitful and sham patriotism.”
Sidebar: Don’t use OFWs to mask double standards in Sabah dispute, Aquino told
A New Long-Term Cold War: Brewing Up a Conflict With China
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Counterpunch Newsletter May 01, 2012 Washington has pressured the Philippines, whose government it owns, into conducting joint military exercises in the South China Sea. Washington’s excuse is that China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries concerning island and sea rights in the South China Sea. Washington asserts…
‘Exceptional’ indeed
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld If the United States, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared this week in an address at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is not provoking conflict with capitalist China, it has an odd way of showing it. As the US spokesperson on global affairs…
What’s the point in the standoff with China?
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat.com There is so much government and media hype over the country’s disputes with China. First it was about the territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands. Now it is about the standoff at Scarborough shoal. It seems as if somebody is trying to stoke the tensions or create a crisis. At the…