Snubbed

FRONTLINE

By Ninez Cacho-Olivares

Obviously, China is still frosty on the Philippines as Chinese President Hu Jintao just as obviously snubbed Noynoy at the summit in Russia.

A snub it was, since China’s Hu met with other Spratly Islands claimants, most pointedly, Vietnam, which has also been quite vocal against China in its assertiveness on its claim of the disputed islands.

Hu also met with the sultan of Brunei and even the representative of Taiwan.

But China’s Hu did not want to meet Noynoy, and in that, inscrutable as the Chinese are, was a clear snub.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario as well as Malacañang, was earlier making a big play on the meeting between Noynoy and Hu, but obviously failed to convince Hu to meet up with Noynoy in Russia.

Still, Noynoy and his Foreign Affairs aide tried saving their faces by claiming that the two sides tried to arrange these talks but that they had run out of time.

C’mon, if Vietnam, Brunei and even Taiwan succeeded in meeting up with Hu, why couldn’t China have had the time to arrange a meeting with Noynoy?

That snub from Hu was much too evident, especially since the talks between Hu and Vietnam’s president, Truong Tan Sang, had been described as friendly.

“It just came to a scheduling challenge, but as you can see the scheduling challenge turned out to be a bigger challenge than we anticipated,” Del Rosario was quoted as saying.

Malacañang had said earlier that a meeting with Hu was Noynoy’s top priority for the summit.

So why does China favor Vietnam and not the Philippines, considering that both Manila and Hanoi have been vocal in their assertions of sovereignty over the disputed islands that China has been claiming?

The difference, it seems to be clear, is that neither Vietnam, nor Malaysia nor the other island-claimants are as identified with the United States as Noynoy is with Uncle Sam, especially as Noynoy does what his US master tells him to do.

Take for instance the many nuclear submarines that have entered the country, totally allowed by Noynoy, who makes a mockery of the constitutional ban on allowing anything nuclear to enter the country, as the Philippines, constitutionally, has embraced a nuclear-free policy.

As for the constitutional ban on foreign military bases in the country and even the ban on foreign military presence, of that too, Noynoy made a mockery, since the American troops have for sometime their bases which they claim are temporary but which are virtually permanent.

Even worse, the Americans in these areas are combat troops, and both Malacañang and the Armed Forces of the Philippines have to lie through their teeth everytime these foreign troops are found out, always claiming that these American troops are merely training the local soldiers as well as their being on an intelligence mission.

Vietnam may be vocally assertive in its claims of the disputed islands against China, but Vietnam is hardly known to kowtow to the United States.

Even when Vietnam goes along with the US call by Hillary Clinton for multilateral talks about the claims of these neighboring countries, instead of China’s preference for bilateral talks with each claimant country, Vietnam hardly ever praised the US to take such a stand against China, or even make it appear that Vietnam needs the US to pressure China into taking a multilateral stand.

Not so with Noynoy, who even uses his believed “American card” to get China to bow to the Philippine position. Why, Noynoy even makes a big deal out of acquiring decades old warships from the US to scare off China.

To this day, hasn’t Noynoy realized that China is such a superpower and a worthy match of the US?

Little boys like Noynoy haven’t any business engaging in the big power game between China and the US. He is out of their league.

Little boys shouldn’t play the pitting game with the big boys, as the little ones lose out.