Golez: China airstrip a 'game-changer'

MANILA - Former National Security Adviser Roilo Golez warned Tuesday about the dangers posed to Philippine security and ASEAN stability if China is able to complete its military installation in Mabini Reef. He said if China is able to construct an airstrip in the disputed area, this will be a game-changer in the region's balance of power. "Now they can base their fighters. I am looking at the J-11 fighter made in China that has a range of 2,000 miles," he said. "Mabini Reef is that dot in the middle. The circle is the 1,000-mile range. You can see it encompasses the entire Philippines, msot of Vietnam, part of Malaysia and the whole of Borneo. So it can threaten all our vital military installations including the installations we can make available under EDCA," he said in an interview on ANC's Headstart. Prof. Richard Heydarian, lecturer in international relations at Ateneo, said China is changing facts on the ground by reclaiming and occupying disputed waters and land features.. He said Beijing could use this in the future when it faces further international legal action in territorial and maritime disputes with its neighbors in the region. "The way China looks at it is this - down the road, they will have to face legal opinion and arbitration. And if you look at recent trends in international arbitration, they give priority and prerogative to countries that establish effective and continuous exercise of sovereignty. So if China will be able to build structures there, and turn some of the structures into islands and project another 200 miles exclusive economic zone, somehow indirectly they will be able to argue this legally that they have continuous and effective exercise of sovereignty," he said. ANC DATELINE PHILIPPINES, June 10, 2014