05/11/2013
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin is hoping that China would not intrude into areas that are within Philippine territory.
Asked to comment on reports quoting a Chinese general as saying that China should take more areas from the Philippines, Gazmin said: “They should not touch our territory.”
A recent article by the New York Times Magazine quoted Maj. Gen. Zhang Zhaozhong of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army as saying that Beijing should assert its territorial claims by surrounding a contested area with ships and wrap it like a cabbage.
“We should do more such things in the future. For those small islands, only a few troopers are able to station on each of them, but there is no food or even drinking water there,” Zhang was quoted in the article as saying, referring to a strategy to take territories from the Philippines.
“If we carry out the cabbage strategy, you will not be able to send food and drinking water onto the islands. Without the supply for one or two weeks, the troopers stationed there will leave the islands on their own. Once they have left, they will never be able to come back.”
The article said the cabbage strategy is now being employed in the Co May Shoal (Ayungin Shoal), an area off Palawan that China calls Ren’ai Shoal. China has also maintained its presence in Scarborough Shoal off Zambales since it barred Navy personnel from arresting Chinese poachers last year
Read more at PhilStar
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