Another win for South Korea’s defense industry:
This photo, provided by Hanwha Systems Co. on May 12, 2023, shows a Jose Rizal-class frigate of the Philippine Navy.
Hanwha Systems Co., the defense and ICT unit of South Korea’s Hanwha Group, said Friday it has won a US$34.5 million contract to supply its combat management system (CMS) to the Philippine Navy.
Hanwha’s indigenous combat system will be installed in six 2,400-ton offshore patrol vessels, in a deal valued at $29.5 million, the Seoul-based company said in a release.
The contract also includes the export of the standard digital communications system, known as the tactical data link, worth $5 million.
A CMS works as the brain of a vessel and is designed to integrate all equipment, like sensors, weapons and communications systems, into one single system to help counter threats more efficiently during combat.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
This would be a huge development if it comes to fruition:
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. says he’d consider a reciprocal military access agreement with Japan to guard his country’s fishermen and sea territory amid tension with China.
“If it will be of help to the Philippines in terms of protecting, for example, our fishermen, protecting our maritime territory, if it’s going to help, then … I don’t see why we should not adopt it,” Marcos said, according to an official transcript of an interview with reporters on his flight back Sunday from a five-day official trip to Tokyo.
Philippine officials are assessing whether such an agreement would help their country or worsen tensions in the South China Sea, Marcos said.
“We have to be careful also because we do not want to appear provocative,” he said. “That instead of calming the situation in the South China Sea, we would heighten it, right? That’s not what we want.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “briefly” discussed the concept of a defense pact when the two leaders met on Thursday, Marcos said. That day, the pair signed an agreement that allows Japan to deploy its forces for humanitarian missions and disaster response in the Philippines, The Associated Press reported Friday.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link, but any military agreement the Philippines signs with Japan will be taken as provocative by China However, isn’t the Chinese forcibly claiming Philippines territory even more provocative?
It looks like President Duterte has finally come around and realized that the CCP not about to make concessions to a country they consider poor and inferior to them:
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has withdrawn a longstanding threat to cancel a defense agreement that allows U.S. military forces to train in his country.
The decision on the Visiting Forces Agreement, or VFA, was announced by Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana at a joint press conference Friday with his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, in Manila.
“The president decided to retract or rescind the VFA termination,” Lorenzana told reporters during the conference, which was streamed online. “We are back on track.” (……..)
Its reprieve is the latest swing for an alliance that has been on shaky ground since the strongman took office in 2016.
Duterte began his presidency by insulting U.S. leaders and stating his intention to move closer to China and Russia.
That hasn’t gotten much traction with China, which has continued to occupy and enlarge artificial islands in the South China Sea that belongs to the Philippines, according to a 2016 international court ruling.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
Here is another example of the Chinese using their auxiliaries to push around a weaker neighbor in the South China Sea. The Philippines is in a tough spot because if they send in Coast Guard and Naval assets to remove the auxiliaries than that gives the Chinese military the excuse to move in and protect them. This is a fight the Philippines cannot win thus why they are turning to the international media:
The Philippine defense chief on Sunday demanded more than 200 Chinese vessels he said were manned by militias leave a South China Sea reef claimed by Manila, saying their presence was a “provocative action of militarizing the area.”
“We call on the Chinese to stop this incursion and immediately recall these boats violating our maritime rights and encroaching into our sovereign territory,” Lorenzana said in a statement, adding without elaborating that the Philippines would uphold its sovereign rights.
A government watchdog overseeing the disputed region said about 220 Chinese vessels were seen moored at Whitsun Reef, which Beijing also claims, on March 7. It released pictures of the vessels side by side in one of the most hotly contested areas of the strategic waterway.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
The Korea Herald has an article about a ethnic Filipina from Hawaii who was bashed on social media for a tattoo resembling the rising sun flag:
A brutal war of words erupted on social media from what started as a mistake by a Filipino American TikTok personality.
Over the past few days, ethnic Koreans and Filipinos have been exchanging derogatory and discriminatory insults over social media, with the Filipino side sharing posts with hashtags like #CancelKorea. An air of reconciliation was looming just as the weekend arrived.
It all comes down to a dance video posted on TikTok on Sept. 5. A Filipino American TikTok personality in Hawaii named Bella Poarch posted a video of herself dancing on the social media platform with a tattoo resembling the Rising Sun design.
The sunburst symbol with 16 rays is regarded as offensive by some, especially among Koreans and Chinese, for its association with Japanese imperialism and war crimes in the early 20th century, similar to the Nazi swastika.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link, but the woman apologized and said she would cover up her tattoo or even get it removed. However, she and Filipinos in general were further attacked by racist comments by Korean social media users. This caused a back and forth of racist comments.
At Gusts of Popular Feeling he has a good posting up about this incident that discusses how little many Koreans know about their own colonial and World War II history with Japan:
What amazes me about this story is the way in which Koreans felt the need to explain that the rising sun flag has negative connotations for Koreans due to the actions of the Japanese military… to people from a country that was invaded by Imperial Japan and whose citizens resisted the invasion. Korea, it should be remembered, never fought a war with Japan. Japanese troops landed in Korea in February 1904 and Emperor Gojong quickly signed a treaty of alliance with Japan. Yes, from 1906 to 1909 the Righteous Armies waged a guerrilla war against the Japanese, and tens of thousands of people rose up against Japanese rule in 1919, and there were sporadic acts of resistance in the following years, but Korea never fought a war against the Japanese in 1904 or any time after. The same can’t be said for the Philippines, where hundreds of thousands died (particularly during the Manila massacre in 1945). The time period when Koreans suffered the most under Japan was during WWII when they were forced to toil or fight for the Japanese war machine that oppressed the Philippines. The number of Koreans who died during the entire colonial period is almost certainly less than the number of Filipinos who died during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.
Another uncomfortable fact is that the theater with the largest number of deaths of Korean soldiers serving in the Japanese army during WWII was… the Philippines (according to the Japanese records quoted in Brandon Palmer’s book, Fighting for the Enemy: Koreans in Japan’s War, 1937-1945, 2,156 of 5,870 Korean soldiers recorded as having died during WWII fell in the Philippines). Needless to say, these soldiers certainly didn’t die fighting on behalf of Filipinos (as Filipinos did fighting on behalf of Koreans during the Korean War).
That Korean netizens feel the need to explain to Filipinos the nature of the brutality of Imperial Japan just goes to show how narrowly Korean textbooks and popular culture depict colonial era history, with, for example, high school textbooks spending only two pages on World War II.
I recommend reading the whole thing at the link because plenty of more good points are made. With that all said, I see this stuff and it just makes me wonder how much of this online racist back and forth is being fueled by the 50 Cent Army to raise tensions between Filipinos and Koreans?
It looks like President Duterte has finally realized that playing nice with the Chinese will not get them to back down from their South China Sea claims:
The Philippine president got rare praises Wednesday from his key critics for invoking before the United Nations a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated China’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea, in a surprise move that will likely pique Beijing.
President Rodrigo Duterte made one of his strongest defenses of the Philippine victory in the arbitration case in his first address before the annual U.N. General Assembly where world leaders spoke mostly in prerecorded videos due to the pandemic. China has long refused to bring the issue to any international arena.
Duterte, who has nurtured close ties with China since taking office in mid-2016, has long been criticized for refusing to immediately and forcefully demand Chinese compliance with the ruling by a U.N.-backed tribunal. It found China’s claims on virtually the entire South China Sea on historical grounds inconsistent with international maritime law.
Associated Press
You can read more at the link, but for those that have not followed this issue, the Chinese have claimed nearly the entire South China Sea as their territory. This includes the waters and islands of other nations in the region to include the Philippines. They have slowly been bullying these nations into submission and President Duterte initially tried to play nice with China which did nothing to stop their territorial ambitions over Filipino waters and islands.
