WORLD: China blasts US over Daioyu row

China-United States frayed relations was strained further after Beijing on Tuesday blasted the US Senate for amending a legislation affirming that the Daioyu Island, which the Japanese calls Senkaku, falls under the authority of a US-Japan security pact.

In a report by the Xinhua News Agency, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China expresses its “serious concern” and “firm opposition” over the latest US move.

“The Chinese side expresses serious concern and firm opposition to the U.S. Senate’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act which involves the Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islets.”

The US Senate,  which passed the bill last week,  said that while it “takes no position” on the ultimate sovereignty of the Daioyu Islands,  has noted that Japan has the rights of administration  over the territory and that “unilateral actions of a third party” would not affect its position.

Hong, however, claimed that the Daioyu Island and its affiliated islets have always been the inherent territory of China since ancient times, and China has undisputed sovereignty over the Daioyu Islands.

Jin Canrong, an American studies professor and deputy dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said that the US bill shows Washington’s actual partiality “behind its seemingly neutral posture.”

According to the U.S. bill, any armed attack “in the territories under the administration of Japan” would be met under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security.

The US has a similar treaty with the Philippines called the Mutual Defense Treaty, which both parties signed in 1951, six years after World War II.

The US, however, has yet to make amendments to the treaty in the light of the country’s own territorial dispute with China in the West Philippine Sea.

Hong described the US Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the US and Japan as a “product of the Cold War era”, and added that it “should not go beyond bilateral scopes, nor undermine the interests of a third party.

Hong added that the US “should not send out signals that conflict with each other and hopes that the US would “proceed from the general situation of peace and stability of the region”, “keep its words” and “do more things that are conducive to peace and stability in the region.”

In Congress, Albay Rep. Al Francis Bichara, chair of the House committee on foreign affairs, said that the US-Japan security treaty may not be applicable to the Philippine setting.

“Kailangan muna natin pag-aralan ang ginawa ng Japan,” Bichara told the Manila Standard.

He said the House of Representatives of cannot legislate a similar measure to reaffirm its claim over the disputed West Philippine Sea.

“If we legislate a similar bill, ibig sabihin parang inamin natin na hindi tayo sigurado na sa atin ang terroritory,” Bichara said.

House Assistant Majority leader Sherwin Tugna said “it will be better if we resolve the issue of the West Philippine Sea multilaterally with other interested countries.-Manila Standard Today (December 05, 2012 12:00AM)