North Korean rockets and Taro Aso.

 Japan’s warning to North Korea over its planned missile launch reveals the willingness and the ability of Tokyo to flex some of its military muscles amidst its supposed “lack of a standing military forces.” Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamuro said Japan could shoot down the rockets.

“Legally speaking, if this object falls toward Japan, we can shoot it down for safety reasons,” he asserted.

Yesterday, North Korea revealed coordinates forming two zones where parts of the multiple-stage rocket would fall, unveiling its plan to fire the projectile over Japan toward the Pacific Ocean sometime between April 4 and 8. One of the “danger” zones where the rocket’s first stage is expected to fall is in waters less than 75 miles from Japan’s northwestern shore.

Normally, countries planning to do a rocket launch do spell out these information, but it was the first time for North Korea to do so. Analyst believe that the reason behind this is because North Korea wants to use brinkmanship again to force the United States back to the negotiations while at the same time minimizing criticisms from the international community.

But the criticisms did come. Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, condemned the plan, saying that the missile launch would “threaten the peace and stability in the region.” The United States State Department, meanwhile, said the attack was “provocative.”

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Rough sailing indeed.

Last December, I speculated that 2009 would be a tough year for the Six-Party Talks on the North Korean Nuclear Crisis. It seems that I was right.

Last year, Pyongyang embarked on its usual saber-rattling rethoric after Japan decided to halt its fuel aid to the hermit country for its “failure to resolve” the issue of North Korean abductions of Japanese nationals. The North Koreans insisted that the issue has been resolved, claiming that the Japanese abductees are already dead. Japan refutes this, saying Pyongyang has consistently failed to present conclusive pieces of evidence that will prove the death of the abductees.

And yesterday, an ex-spy from North Korea who had defected to and is now living in South Korea, Kim Hyon Hui, met with the family of Yaeko Taguchi, one of the Japanese abductees, in Busan. Kim told Taguchi’s relatives that the abductee is still alive.

 “I have no doubt your mother is still alive,” Kim, who is believed to have learned Japanese from Taguchi, told them in Japanese.

This is contrary to Pyongyans’s claim that Taguchi had died in an accident in July 1986.

I have no idea how Kim was able to know that Taguchi is still alive, but her statement nevertheless complicates the resolution of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis because of two implications:

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On ASEAN’s future.

When former President Fidel V. Ramos visited my university as guest lecturer last Thursday, I took the opportunity to ask what he thinks the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must do to be more relevant in the coming years.

President Ramos has a deep appreciation of the ASEAN. His father, former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Narciso Ramos, was a signatory to the Bangkok Declaration that gave birth to the organization. As President, he was able to restrain China’s provocative action in the Spratlys by rallying the ASEAN against Beijing. More recently, as a member of the ASEAN’s eminent persons group (EPG), he was instrumental in expediting the drafting of the ASEAN’s Charter, which was finally promulgated last December.

The former president revealed that, as the Philippines’ representative to the EPG, among his many recommendations were for the ASEAN to strive towards becoming an EU-like union and for it to do away with consensus-based decision-making. He said that if the European Union, which has more than twenty members, could do it; the ASEAN, with just ten members, can do it as well.

Personally, of course, I have serious doubts about ASEAN becoming an EU-like union. This is due to at least three reasons. First, unlike the members of the EU, the ASEAN members do not share common culture and traditions. Some of the member-states are Buddhist, some are Muslims and one is Christian. Some are dictatorships, some are democratic and some are communist. Second, unlike the members of the EU, conflicts still arise from time to time among ASEAN members: between Cambodia and Thailand over a Buddhist temple, between the Philippines and Malaysia over North Borneo, and between four ASEAN members over the Spratlys. Third, nationalism remains strong among ASEAN peoples, and it is highly unlikely that this nationalism will give way to regionalism. Even in the Philippines, for example, allowing Singaporeans or Thais to practice medicine or teaching or other professions remains emotionally unpopular.

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Kaleidoscope World.

A tribute to a good man:

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What is Obama’s Asia policy?

Notwithstanding Asia being the destination of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first foreign trip as President Barack Obama’s top diplomat, it remains unclear to me whether Asia would indeed occupy a prominent place in the new US administration’s foreign policy. 

As many pundits on this site and everywhere note, the Philippines has gone off the Americans’ radar. This was obvious when President Obama snubbed- deliberately, in my opinion- Mrs. Arroyo thrice. This was confirmed when Secretay Clinton refused to accept Mrs. Arroyo’s invitation for her to visit Manila, and when the State Department published a series of reports criticizing rampant human rights violations and cases of corruption under the present regime.

But it seems that the Philippines, which many regard as America’s oldest ally in this part of the world, is not the only traditional US partner left snubbed by Secretary Clinton. Thailand, another major non-NATO ally (which, incidentally receives more military aid than the Philippines does even though it doesn’t have a VFA with Washington), was sidelined as well.

Indonesia, the only ASEAN country visited by Secretary Clinton, appears to be the replacement for the Philippines and Thailand in Southeast Asia. Some believe that such a “replacement” was necessary because of the growing instability of democracy in Manila and Bangkok. Some on the other hand, point to President Obama’s sentimental connection to Indonesia; which, I think, is not something the new President would anchor his foreign policy on.

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Baselines Bill: The bigger picture.

Much is being said about the Philippine Baselines Bill, especially now that it has been approved by a bicameral committee of Congress.  Some feel that the bill is a sell-out on the part of the Philippines. Some, on the other hand, fear that the bill might cause a “shooting war” with China.

But what is important is for us to really understand what the bill is about, especially now that the fears and the indignation has somehow blurred our thoughts and understanding of the issues surrounding it.

Our colleague Patricio Mangubat was among the first to raise alarm that with this bill, the Philippines has effectively given up its claim on Scarborough Shoal and the Kalayaan Islands Group (KIG). In an entry posted on this website, Patricio said that the bill has “effectively excluded the Kalayaan Islands and Scarborough isles from Philippine territory.”

This is inaccurate. Senate Bill 2699 does not exclude the two groups of isles from the national territory. What it does is exclude them from the main archipelago and identify them as a regime of islands.

The regime of islands doctrine is grossly misunderstood. Most fear that the label weakens our claim to several of the disputed territories. It doesn’t help that even those in the Cabinet seem to be equally confused about it. Palace spokesman Anthony Golez, for example, has said that a regime of islands  is “a group of islands whose ownership is being contested by the Philippines and other claimant countries.”

But actually, regime of islands is defined as a group of islands detached from the main territory of the state but over which that state enjoys full ownership and sovereignty. Just like, for instance, Hawaii, which is not part of the American mainland but is under the sovereignty of the United States.

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COMEBACK KID.

I’m back to blogging!

I left this blog because I lost my Internet connection at home. I had it disconnected because SmartBro’s customer service sucks big time. Now, I still have no connection at home because all the other Internet providers have not reached my remote residence yet. I’ll be blogging from school or from Internet cafe, which is better that enduring the inconvenience of SmartBro.

There would be some changes to this blog. I’ll try to improve my grammar. I’ll try to analyze issues instead of rant about them. I hope the readers who used to like this blog would like it again. Love, afterall, is sweeter the second time around. Cheers.