World News | Vice President Harris visits to support Philippine island sea dispute

MANILA, Nov. 20 (AP) Vice President Kamala Harris will stress the United States’ commitment to defending the Philippines, a treaty ally, with a visit that begins Sunday and flies to Washington, D.C., an island province facing the disputed South China Sea. Accuses China of bullying smaller claimant countries.

After attending the APEC summit in Thailand, Harris will fly to Manila on Sunday night and hold talks with President Ferdinand Marcos the next day aimed at strengthening Washington’s historic role in Asia, a senior U.S. administration official said. The oldest treaty alliance and strengthen economic ties said in an online briefing ahead of the visit.

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On Tuesday, she will fly to Palawan province on the South China Sea coast to meet local fishermen, villagers, officials and the coast guard. She is the highest-ranking U.S. leader to date to visit the border island, which is at the forefront of a long-running territorial dispute between China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

The Philippine Coast Guard is expected to welcome Harris aboard one of its largest patrol ships, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, as she is in Palawan to greet the coast guard, police, according to coast guard spokesman Brigadier General Armand Barilo. , military and government officials delivered speeches.

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Harris will stress “the importance of international law, unimpeded commerce and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea,” the U.S. official said, adding that in response to a question, Washington was not concerned about how Beijing would view the visit.

“China can take whatever information it wants,” the U.S. official said. “The message to the region is that the United States is part of the Indo-Pacific, we are engaged, and we are committed to keeping our allies in the region safe.”

Jose Manuel Romualdes, the Philippine ambassador to Washington, said Harris’ trip to Palawan showed the level of U.S. support for the ally and concerns about China’s actions in the disputed waters.

“It’s clear that the message they’re trying to send to the Chinese is that we stand by our allies, like the Philippines, on these disputed islands,” Romualdez told The Associated Press. “This visit is an important step in showing how seriously the United States now views the situation.”

Washington and Beijing have long clashed over the disputed waters. While the United States has no claim to the strategic waterway, through which an estimated $5 trillion in global trade passes each year, the United States says freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea is in its national interest.

China objects to U.S. naval and air force patrolling the busy waterway, which Beijing claims almost entirely. It warned Washington not to intervene in what it said was a purely Asian territorial conflict – which has become a delicate front in US-China rivalry in the region and has long been feared a potential Asian flashpoint.

In July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on China to abide by a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and warned that if Philippine troops, ships or aircraft were sanctioned , Washington is obliged to defend the Philippines, a treaty ally. Attacks in disputed waters.

China rejected a 2016 ruling by a tribunal established in The Hague under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea after the Philippine government complained in 2013 about China’s increasingly aggressive actions in disputed waters. Beijing did not participate in the arbitration, rejecting its sham award and continuing to flout it.

Harris’ visit is the latest sign of growing rapport between Washington and Manila under Marcos Jr., who took office in a landslide election in June.

U.S. relations with the Philippines entered a difficult period under Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who threatened to sever ties with Washington and expel visiting U.S. troops and had tried to scrap an agreement with the U.S. Major defense pact, while building friendly relations with China and Russia.

In his first meeting with Marcos Jr. in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Joe Biden underlined the importance the United States places on its relationship with the Philippines, despite some headwinds.

“We’ve been through some tough times, but the truth is, from our perspective, this is a vital, vital relationship. I hope you feel the same way,” Biden said.

“We continue to look to the United States to continue our partnership and maintain peace in our region,” Marcos Jr. told Biden. “We are your partners. We are your allies. We are your friends.”

Romualdez said the settlement comes at a critical time when the United States needs to build a deterrent force amid growing security threats in the region.

Philippine Military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Bacalome Baccaro said last week that the U.S. wants to build military facilities in five other areas in the northern Philippines under a 2014 defense cooperation agreement that allows U.S. forces to build warehouses and Barracks in the Temporary Residential Area.

The Philippine constitution prohibits foreign military bases, but at least two defense agreements allow U.S. troops to visit the Philippines temporarily by aircraft and naval vessels for joint military exercises and training.

The strategic location of the northern Philippines across the Taiwan Strait could serve as an important outpost should tensions between China and the self-governing island worsen. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)