Obama, Aquino to meet amid China unease

  President Barack Obama's meeting with Philippine President Benigno Aquino comes amid growing unease about China's flouting of international law, Aquino said. A smoldering dispute between the Philippines and China over an area of the South China Sea known as Scarborough Shoal -- where Chinese fishing boats are operating in defiance of Philippine claims -- is just one example of Chinese territorial muscle-flexing, Aquino said before meeting with Obama at the White House Friday to discuss military and economic cooperation. Other areas of dispute include access to gas and oil fields in the sea, he told The Wall Street Journal. "If they do not conform to international law, there will be a lot of other countries that will find themselves like us, thinking, 'What should our relationship be with the Chinese?'" he told the newspaper. Manila and Beijing both claim gas and oil fields near the Philippines' Palawan province, as well as the fish-rich Scarborough Shoal. Philippine officials often arrest Chinese fishermen for allegedly using illegal fishing methods and catching endangered and protected species in the shoal. U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp. and British-Dutch oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell PLC are heavily invested with Philippines National Oil Co. in the Malampaya and Camago fields. China claims almost the entire 1.4-million-square-mile sea, connected to the Pacific Ocean, as territorial waters. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton infuriated China in 2010 when she said Washington had an interest in ensuring that the South China Sea should remain open to navigation amid the continuing territorial disputes. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said in November "outside forces should not, under any pretext," interfere in a regional fight over the South China Sea's control. Territorial disputes in the South China Sea -- which also borders Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam -- are widely regarded as Asia's most potentially dangerous point of conflict. Aquino -- son of former Philippine President Corazon Aquino and a former senator, elected president in 2010 -- was to meet with Obama in the Oval office at 2 p.m. EDT, the White House said Thursday evening. He was to meet with Clinton for lunch before meeting with Obama, the two leaders' fourth meeting. Aquino was also to meet with key U.S. senators and participate in the start of the non-profit United States-Philippines Society, intended to raise the Philippines' U.S. profile. In the Oval Office meeting, the two leaders were expected to talk as well about increasing defense cooperation and Philippine steps toward joining the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, a multilateral free trade agreement that seeks to further open Asia-Pacific economies, U.S. and Philippine officials said. The Philippines economy grew 6.4 percent in the first three months, which Aquino told the Journal was probably the year's low point. On military priorities, U.S. officials want to gain Philippine approval for stationing U.S. forces on a rotating basis in the Philippines to upgrade the U.S. military presence as part of a stepped-up U.S. presence in the region. A similar agreement was worked out late last year to rotate U.S. Marines through Australia near Darwin. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week Washington would shift the bulk of its cruisers, destroyers, submarines and other warships to the Asia-Pacific region within the next decade so 60 percent of them are based in the Pacific by 2020. The U.S. Navy fleet of 285 ships is currently split evenly between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Panetta said Washington would also increase the number of military exercises it conducts in the region. The U.S. Pacific Command conducted 172 military exercises with 24 different countries last year. Aquino told the Journal the Pentagon has provided a list of possible locations where U.S. forces could be temporarily stationed but wouldn't say which are being actively considered. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin described Washington's plans Monday to scale up its military presence in the region as "untimely" and said all parties should focus on maintaining peace and stability in the region.