Morning Star.png Philippine Ex-President in China, Breaking Ice The Morning Star, London, 9 August 2016 Former Filipino president Fidel Ramos flew to Hong Kong yesterday for "ice-breaker" talks amid the South China Sea territorial dispute. President Rodrigo Duterte said he had dispatched his ageing predecessor to pave the way for negotiations with Beijing after the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague rejected China's territorial claims in a case put forward by the Philippines. "I am just the ice-breaker, as they say, to rekindle, to warm up again our good, friendly, neighbourly relations with China and that's all that I have to do," Mr Ramos said. China rejected the court's ruling, saying the tribunal has no jurisdiction over the matter, and has slammed the US for urging Manila to take legal action to enforce it. But Mr Duterte's government, which has also offered peace deals to several rebel forces, has sounded conciliatory notes towards Beijing. Mr Ramos served as president from 1992 to 1998. During his term of office China asserted control over the disputed Mischief Reef in 1995, but tensions were diffused when Chinese then-president Jiang Zemin visited Manila the next year. In a bizarre moment the two leaders performed karaoke duets of songs including Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender on a Manila Bay cruise. In China, the US navy destroyer USS Benfold arrived in the northern port of Qingdao yesterday for joint manoeuvres with the Chinese navy. Commander Justin Harts said the visit aimed to "build relationships" with his Chinese counterparts but referred questions on tensions in the South China Sea to Pacific command in Hawaii. Admiral Scott Swift, the top US naval officer in Asia, plans to meet the media in Qingdao today. As well as China and the Philippines, four other nations have laid conflicting claims to parts of the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea, a major shipping lane. The US has raised tensions by sending naval aircraft-carrier battle groups to patrol the sea. The rebel Communist Party of the Philippines ordered its guerrillas to step up production of explosive booby traps yesterday in an apparent rejection of peace talks. Mr Duterte has warned that if another soldier or civilian is killed by the landmines, he will call off the talks scheduled to resume in Norway on August 20. From: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-c212-Philippines-Ramos-off-to-Beijing-w ith-South-China-Sea-in-mind#.V6lmWvl9600 __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 13931 (20160809) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/yclsa-eom-forum/002401d1f204%24e71be110%24b553a330%24%40com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
