Whoever is rolling out the new US maritime
strategy for East Asia apparently regards the Financial Times as his or her
chosen instrument.
The FT,
for its part, appears to believe that it completes its journalistic mission by
reporting the US position, and sees no need to examine the US claims in detail,
a shortcoming I intend to remedy in this piece.
In
recent days two backgrounded FT articles have expressed US frustration with
Chinese salami-slicing and cabbage wrapping in the South China Sea. From the
first piece, Pentagon plans new tactics to deter China in South China Sea:
In
recent months, the US has come to two broad conclusions about its approach to
the South China Sea. The first is that its efforts at deterrence are having
only limited impact. Despite considerable US attention and rhetoric since 2010,
China has slowly continued to shift the status quo in ways that are rattling
both many of its neighbours and the US.
The
second is that US military strategy in the region has to some extent been
asking the wrong question. For several years, some of the Pentagon's best minds
have been focused on how the US would win a protracted war with China and have
come up with a new concept - known as AirSea Battle - to ensure continued
access of US aircraft and ships to contested areas during a conflict.
However,
the reality is that Washington is facing a very different military challenge, a
creeping assertion of control by the Chinese that often involves civilian rather
than naval vessels - the sort of grey area that would not normally warrant any
response from the US.
The
solution doesn't appear particularly impressive on the surface: basically
naming and shaming through increased and closer US surveillance.
More important,
perhaps, is the thrust of the second article: an effort to paint the PRC as the
guys who cheated at the game, rather than outplayed the United States. That is
important because the United States has taken another step in shedding its
threadbare "honest broker" costume, and is adopting a more overtly
confrontational posture in backing the PRC's overmatched local adversaries and
imposing the US strategic and tactical agenda on the region.
And
that, it appears, requires getting rewrite on the phone for some creative
history.
The
event in question is the scuffle over the Scarborough Shoal in 2012. In an
attempt to assert Philippine sovereignty, Manila apprehended some Chinese
fishermen poaching protected shellfish in the shoal and made a point of broadcasting
pictures of them with their ill-gotten conch. Two Chinese maritime patrol
vessels appeared, and the Philippines withdrew without detaining the fisherman.
The
Chinese ships stuck around and were joined by fishing vessels.
Now,
according to second the FT backgrounder, US strategists face a dilemma over
Beijing's claim in the South China Sea:
With
typhoon season fast approaching, the US tried to broker a resolution. By the
end of the meeting between Kurt Campbell, then the top US diplomat for Asia,
and Fu Ying, China's vice foreign minister for Asia, the US side believed they
had an agreement for both sides to withdraw. The following week, the
Philippines ships left the Scarborough Shoal and returned home. The Chinese,
however, stayed in the area.
The
Scarborough Shoal case played a big role in another part of the new approach by
the US and its allies: the appeal to the courts. Albert del Rosario told the FT
that it was the "catalyst" for Manila's decision to bring China to an
international court over its expansive claims in the South China Sea.
Even
though there is still considerable resentment over the way events in
Scarborough Shoal unfolded, the Obama administration has shown no willingness
to reopen the issue and push for a Chinese withdrawal.
Speaking
last month at a conference in Singapore, Ms Fu denied there had been any deal
between her and US diplomats in 2012. "I do not know what agreement you
are referring to," she said. The Chinese vessels did not leave the area
because they feared the Philippines might double-cross them.
"All
China is doing is to keep an eye on the island for fear that the Philippines
would do it again," said Ms Fu.
US
officials tell a different story, insisting there was a clear understanding at
the 2012 meeting that the Chinese would take the idea of a mutual withdrawal
from Scarborough Shoal back to senior leaders in Beijing.
They
say it is unclear whether Ms Fu really tried to sell the agreement in Beijing
or whether the foreign ministry was overruled by more hawkish elements in the
Chinese system, including the military.
This is
pretty weak beer.
And I
will add my considered opinion that any scenario based on the PRC agreeing to
US mediation in its dealings with the Philippines is, for lack of a nicer word,
horsepucky.
The
PRC's detestation of internationalization of its one-sided scrum with the Philippines
is a byword in Chinese diplomacy. Maybe as a courtesy, Fu agreed to transmit
the US proposal back to Beijing; most likely, the leadership's decision would
have been to reject any US involvement in the matter. Indeed, as shown below,
the record in the Philippine media supports this interpretation.
What
was really going on in June 2012 seems not to have been the rape of Kurt
Campbell's injured innocence by the dastardly Chinese; more likely it was a
carnival of collusion, incompetence, and bad faith, with Philippine Foreign
Minister Alberto Del Rosario at its center.
Negotiations
with the Chinese were not in the hands of Campbell or, for that matter, Del
Rosario.
President
Aquino had despaired of achieving diplomatic engagement with the PRC over the
Scarborough Shoal issue through Del Rosario - a China-bashing fire eater - and
had instead opened a back channel to the PRC through an senator, Antonio
Trillanes IV. (Del Rosario apparently retaliated by dispatching an ex-business
associate of his to Beijing to represent himself as Del Rosario's own informal
envoy and further muddy the waters.)
Trillanes
was not just engaged in occasional chit-chat. He apparently was the recognized
conduit for behind the scenes engagement between the Philippines and the PRC,
claiming to have met with the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs 16 times
concerning the Scarborough matter between May and July 2012. Presumably, he met
more than once with Fu Ying who, in addition to acting as Vice Minister of
Foreign Affairs for Asia, had previously served as ambassador to the
Philippines and was entrusted with presenting the smiling PRC face to the
Philipines.
Trillanes
clearly detests Rosario - he characterized Del Rosario as a "traitor"
- and Del Rosario certainly returned the favor.
In an
attempt to discredit Trillanes and his channel, the speaker of the Philippine
Senate, Juan Ponce Enrile flayed Trillanes' efforts when they came to light in
September 2012.
Excercising
the government's prerogative of leaking classified information when political
necessity demands, Enrile introduced some confidential notes from the
Philippine ambassador to the PRC, whom Trillanes briefed on his talks, and
added his own vituperative remarks in order to provide the most unfavorable
gloss on Trillanes' actions.
The
notes are not particularly damning to Trillanes, and they do characterize the
nature of Campbell's contacts with Fu rather persuasively:
"There
was never any negotiation between the Chinese and the Americans, just a meeting
with Kurt Campbell. Mr Campbell was not a negotiator. Besides, Secretary del
Rosario was not there."
Rather
unambiguously albeit awkwardly, President Aquino credited Trillanes with
negotiating the mutual climbdown ... and in September 2012, far from
repudiating Trillanes, confirmed that the senator was still his informal envoy:
Aquino
was asked about the Palace statement that Trillanes achieved "minor
successes" in his role as backdoor negotiator.
The
President said Trillanes' work helped reduce the number of Chinese vessels in
Scarborough Shoal, deescalating the tension. Aquino was however unsure about
the exact number.
"Yon
naman siguro pwede nating i-credit doon sa efforts rin at efforts ni Senator
Trillanes at iba pang efforts ano." (This we can credit to the efforts of
Senator Trillanes and other efforts.)
Aquino
admitted that he felt uneasy discussing Trillanes' work in detail because the
talks were informal in nature.
"'Pag
informal nito, hindi pwedeng sabihin publicly sa China. Meron silang
considerations sa pag-a-address nung kanilang constituencies. So hindi ko
pwedeng ibigay sa inyo lahat ng detalye pero mukhang napakaliwanag na humupa
naman nang maski papaano 'yung tension diyan at nakatulong si Senator
Trillanes." (When it's informal, it means we can't discuss it publicly
with China. They have considerations in addressing their constituencies. So we
can't give you all the details but it looks like it's very clear that the tension
was reduced and Senator Trillanes helped.)
As to
how the withdrawal actually played out, Philippine journalist Ellen Tordesillas
provided this timeline in 2012:
Days
before President Aquino left for London and the United States, Fu Ying was in
Washington DC and met with Kurt Campbell, US Assistant Secretary of State for
East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
DFA and
Chinese sources said Campbell suggested a simultaneous withdrawal of vessels from
Panatag Shoal to de-escalate the tension.
A DFA
official said United States Ambassador to Manila Harry Thomas relayed to Del
Rosario that Beijing has agreed to a simultaneous withdrawal.
This is
the "agreement" Del Rosario said Beijing reneged on. He referred to
this agreement in several statements.
Chinese
sources said what happened in Washington was that Fu Ying told Campbell she
would relay the suggestion to Beijing.
Bejing
said they would "gradually pull out" of the disputed shoal.
"There was never a commitment for a total pullout," a Chinese source
said, explaining that "they have a domestic audience to consider."
China
has always been against the intervention of the US in conflict in Asia and
sources said the Chinese officials did not appreciate it that the Americans
were negotiating for the Philippines.
Based
on Thomas' confirmation, Del Rosario ordered the pullout of Philippine vessels
in the middle of the night. By morning, the President was displeased that Del
Rosario had made that order. So he called Trillanes to ask the Chinese why their
ships remained in the area when the Philippines had already pulled out.
Trillanes
was unaware of such an agreement coursed through the US Following the
President's orders, he called his counterpart in China to follow the Philippine
move, since both countries had already agreed on a "simultaneous
pullout."
The
Chinese sent word to Aquino, through Trillanes, that they would issue a
statement to explain the back-to-port order of their ships, and asked that they
be given 48 hours to relay the orders to appropriate agencies in Beijing.
Aquino
departed for London and the US, relieved that the tension had de-escalated.
The
Philippines said it pulled out its ships to safety because of the bad weather
in Scarborough Shoal. China for its part said they will go back to port to
re-supply.
But
before China could complete the pullout, the DFA issued a statement accusing
China of reneging on an agreement. This angered China, which insisted there was
no such agreement.
It
seems quite likely that this account, and not the FT's, hews closer to the
facts. For reasons of practicality (Fu was already in negotiations with
Aquino's designated envoy, Trillanes) and principal (US involvement in
bilateral PRC-Philippine disputes were to be discouraged), it seems unlikely that
Fu was luring Kurt down the garden path.
Neither,
for that matter, is it particularly credible that Campbell would believe
America's blinding "honest broker" charisma would persuade a vice
foreign minister to sign off on a fundamental PRC strategy of bilateral dispute
resolution, and settle a Philippine issue without the Philippine foreign
minister even in the room.
Tit-for-tat,
as opposed to simultaneous, withdrawal was being discussed between Trillanes
and the PRC, per the Philippine ambassador's notes:
"The
arrangement being looked at by the senator, meaning Senator Trillanes, was one
side would leave first then the other side then the next, etc. They were
talking about the manner of evacuating the Scarborough. He then received a call
from PNoy [Philippine President Benigno Aquino III], saying why are the Chinese
still there when there was an agreement for simultaneous withdrawal. He thought
to himself, 'This is not the arrangement.' He was protecting the Chinese."
Meaning:
I'll go out on a short limb and infer that the ambassador meant Trillanes was
"defending" not "protecting" the Chinese.
The
confusion created by Del Rosario's assertion that the PRC had committed to a
simultaneous withdrawal, and his denunciations of the Chinese for reneging, are
palpable.
At the
time, the PRC made the point that it felt Del Rosario, in denouncing the PRC
for its failure to withdraw its ships simultaneously, was talking through his
hat, both through official and unofficial channels.
As in
an official statement from the China.gov web portal:
Philippine
Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said Friday that Manila is waiting
for Beijing to meet its commitment to remove its vessels that remain in the
lagoon of Huangyan Island after the only Philippine ship there left this week.
In
response to Del Rosario's remarks, Hong questioned where and when the
Philippine side received such a commitment from China.
He
urged the Philippines to constrain its words and deeds and do more things that
are conducive to the development of bilateral ties.
And via
Global Times:
Zhuang
Guotu, director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Xiamen University,
told the Global Times, a tabloid of the Communist Party-owned People's Daily
that "China has never made commitments that it would pull out from the
waters around the island. The Philippine side is saying this to get out of an
awkward situation."
Nevertheless,
the PRC did take action in support of the de-escalation process.
On June
18, the PRC announced it would be removing the 20 fishing vessels inside the
lagoon:
"Due
to the inclement weather and strong tide in the Huangyan Island (Panatag Shoal)
waters, in order to help Chinese fishermen and fishing boats pull out safely
for shelter, Nanhaijiu-115 vessel has set out to the area to provide necessary
assistance," the Embassy said in a statement posted on its website on
Sunday.
In
fact, according to Del Rosario himself, on June 25 the shoal was completely
clear of all ships, Chinese and Philippino, an awkward state of affairs that
the FT account of Chinese duplicity fails to address.
Two
days later, however, the PRC ships were back. Supposedly, the PRC took umbrage
at President Aquino's statement that the Philippines would fly surveillance aircraft
over the shoal (and, I would expect, also took exception to statements by the
Philippine defense ministry that it was imperative that Philippines take
control of the shoal to pre-empt any Chinese return).
Perhaps
the underlying reason was that the PRC realized that the Trillanes channel had
completely imploded, the initiative lay with Del Rosario, and there best option
was to return to the status quo ante (after symbolically vacating the shoal for
a couple days to indicate it could and would honor the undertakings it made
through Trillanes).
The PRC
re-established its presence at the shoal, which it maintains to this day.
Currently PRC vessels control entrance to the shoal via a cable strung across
the mouth, and occasionally even accommodate the entry of some Philippine
fishing vessels.
As to
the second order consequences, observers are welcome to speculate that Foreign
Minister Rosario was either a clueless ass who abruptly ordered the Philippine
vessels to vacate the shoal on the unilateral say-so of the US ambassador
despite the PRC's long-standing insistence on bilateral negotiations (which
indeed were ongoing), without any confirmation from the main Beijing
negotiating channel, and without informing his president or he presumed upon
whatever statement the US ambassador passed to him to assert the existence of a
fictitious agreement for simultaneous evacuation in order a precipitous
unilateral evacuation so he could accuse the Chinese of bad faith, torpedo the
deal, and foreclose a bilateral PRC-Philippine process that kept Del Rosario
(and the US) on the outside looking in.
President
Aquino provided Del Rosario with considerably less than full-throated backup
over the fiasco:
Malacanang
[the presidential palace] is leaving it up to the Department of Foreign Affairs
(DFA) to answer China's claim that it never committed to pull out its vessels
from the disputed Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.
"First
off, the commitment has always been to deescalate tensions; to always be
sensitive about what is being said. Second, we will defer to the DFA to respond
to that particular issue," deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte
said.
Given
this context, it is not surprising that Del Rosario felt compelled to offer his
resignation to Aquino over the Scarborough brouhaha, which Aquino declined. A
sense of discomfort within the Philippine establishment concerning Del
Rosario's confrontational agenda can be seen in the publication of a heated
defense of his incendiary anti-Chinese diplomacy at ASEAN in July 2012.
Del
Rosario further muddied the waters in September 2012 by claiming rather
unconvincingly he had negotiated the fatal deal with the PRC's ambassador to
the Philippines, Ma Keqing, which needless to say conflicts with both the
Trillanes and the Campbell versions, both of which are predicated on the
premise that Del Rosario was not effective as an interlocutor with the Chinese.
As to
the declaration that the United States and Philippines were pushed beyond their
endurance by PRC perfidy and finally decided more in sorrow than in anger to
pursue the Philippine case through a lawsuit before the International Tribunal
of the Law of the Sea, it appears that the US had already hung its hat on
shifting the Scarborough dispute to an international forum before the
simultaneous vs alternating evacuation unpleasantness played out.
While
the negotiations were still bubbling along on June 21 (the deal fell apart on
June 26, when the PRC reoccupied the shoal):
A US
official on Thursday said Washington supports the Philippine initiative to
resolve the dispute between Manila and Beijing over Panatag Shoal through legal
means ...
Joy
Yamamoto, political section counselor and acting deputy chief of mission of the
US embassy in Manila, echoed [Ambassador] Thomas' statement.
"We
have been very consistent throughout this dispute in supporting international
law in settlement of dispute, so we continue to support China and the
Philippines to settle the issue through international means," said
Yamamoto.
With
this context, my personal construction would be that the tenor of Kurt Campbell's
representations to Fu Ying in Virginia in early June might have been along the
lines of: "Withdraw from the shoal. Otherwise the US will encourage a
Philippine legal challenge to the 9-dash line."
With
the eager assistance of Del Rosario, failure was pretty much pre-ordained and
the Philippines took their case to arbitration.
Now the
question is begged as to why, two years after the fact - and despite a public
record that calls its version of events into serious question - the United
States deems it necessary to publicly promote a Scarborough Doclhstoss
("stabbed in the back" for you non-German speakers) meme at this
particular time.
First
of all, US South China Sea policy needs a reboot. To quote the FT:
"Our
efforts to deter China [in the South China Sea] have clearly not worked,"
said a senior US official.
In
2010, the US justified its attention to the remote reaches of the SCS on the
grounds of "a national interest in freedom of navigation".
The
substantive US interest in freedom of navigation - the freedom of US military
vessels to conduct surveillance within the PRC EEZ - was de facto conceded by
the PRC pretty promptly. On the other hand, since the PRC was relies on freedom
of navigation for commercial traffic to an existential degree (most of the
traffic through the SCS is, after all, going to and from Chinese ports), there
was an embarrassing dearth of Chinese offenses against freedom of navigation
that compelled US action.
While
sedulously protecting freedom of navigation (and studiously declining to take
positions on sovereignty issues), the United States had no direct riposte to
the most conspicuous PRC exercise of outrance in the South China Sea: the
dispatch of the HYSY 981 drilling rig into disputed waters off the Paracel Islands.
In
simpler times, the US might have been willing to concede that the PRC had the
stronger case than Vietnam thanks to its conspicuously exercised sovereignty
over the Paracels, and Vietnam's Vietnam was only muddying the waters by
deploying the politics of outrage to sustain its claim.
But
these are complicated times, and the United States, Philippines, and Japan have
clubbed together to ensure that Vietnam is spared the embarrassment of
acknowledging PRC sovereignty over the Paracels, divvying up the overlapping
EEZs accordingly, and, perhaps, putting one festering South China Sea problem
in the rear view mirror.
Failure
to deter the HYSY 981 exploit would seem to require that the definition of the
US national interest in the South China Sea be redefined to enable more
effective pushback, preferably pushback that carries the threat of the PRC's
least-desired outcome: confrontation with US military forces, a threat
justified by the US assertion that, as demonstrated by the Scarborough Shoal
affair, the PRC is a dangerously duplicitous adversary.
The
Financial Times makes an interesting elision by stating "The Obama
administration declared South China Sea a US "national interest" in
2010," leaving out the rather important qualifier "in freedom of
navigation". Connoisseurs of irony are welcome to wonder if the next step
will be for the US to declare this remote basin of rocks, reefs, and shoals
10,000 miles from the homeland a "core interest", a formulation for
which it excoriated the PRC when it tried to apply that formulation to its near
beyond in 2010.
Today,
if the US is simply declaring a national interest "in the South China
Sea" full stop, that would imply, well pretty much whatever the US wants
it to imply. In practical terms, this means that the United States will have
the luxury of acting unilaterally in its self-defined national interest,
unconstrained by rigid considerations of international law (which the PRC, for
the most part, carefully attempts to parse and the United States, by its
failure to ratify the Law of the Sea convention, is on the back foot) or the
position of ASEAN (which the PRC has, for the most part, been successful in
splitting).
The US
took another bite out of the SCS apple by calling for a construction ban in the
South China Sea (the PRC has been dredging, expanding, and improving some of
its island holdings in order to strengthen its sovereignty claims):
Speaking
at a Washington think tank, senior State Department official Michael Fuchs
voiced great concern over the "increasingly tenuous situation" as an
assertive China and five of its smaller neighbors vie for control of tiny
islands and reefs in waters with plentiful fisheries and potential hydrocarbon
reserves.
Fuchs
said no claimant was solely responsible for the tensions, but criticized a
pattern of "provocative" behavior by China.
He
detailed a proposal for a voluntary freeze on activities which escalate
tensions, to flesh out a 2002 declaration by China and the Southeast Asian bloc
that calls for self-restraint in the South China Sea. The US is expected to
push the proposal at a gathering of Asian foreign ministers in Myanmar next
month.
Fuchs
said the claimants themselves would need to agree on the terms, but suggested
stopping establishment of new outposts and any construction and land
reclamation that would fundamentally change existing outposts. He also proposed
that one claimant should not stop another from continuing long-standing
economic activities in disputed areas.
Apparently
the United States has decided that ASEAN needs an extra push to come up with
the proper anti-PRC policies and, even though the US is not a member of ASEAN,
it will be more pro-active in trying to shape its policies and counter the
PRC's attempts to divide and influence the forum.
Actually
the new US posture - call it Requiem for the "Honest Broker" or We're
Taking Sides: Got A Problem With that? was already rolled out for the occasion
of the resupply of the Philippine Marines aboard the hulk of the Sierra Madre
on the Thomas Second Shoal in April 2014.
Billed
at the time as "plucky Philippine craft evades hulking PRC maritime patrol
vessel", as I noted in a piece for Asia Times Online, it was actually a
choreographed exercise in alliance anti-PRC pushback, featuring a ship loaded
with gunwales and Western journos, US surveillance aircraft overhead, and a
suspiciously fortuitous port call by two Japanese destroyers.
Now,
the FT article indeed explicitly characterizes the Sierra Madre resupply as a
piece of US pushback, while failing to note it was something of a Rubicon: de
facto support of the Philippines against the PRC ie taking sides in a
territorial dispute, something that it would be difficult to justify in even in
terms of enforcing the ASEAN standstill agreement (since the US is not a party
to ASEAN, nor has ASEAN asked the US to enforce the voluntary agreement on its
behalf).
I
expect there will be more Rubicons in the South China Seas' future.
Perhaps
we are now approaching a situation in which the United States explicitly
declares that it will act in the South China Seas on behalf of the Philippines
or Vietnam against the PRC for the sake of a unilaterally defined US interest.
The
need to justify a pretty significant shift to unilateralism in the US doctrine
for the South China Sea is, perhaps, behind the decision to repackage the
US/Del Rosario Scarborough gambit as a Chinese outrage. That way the US move
can be presented as retaliatory to PRC misbehavior, not as an escalation
provoked by PRC success in gaming the current SCS order.
A
further whiff of this possibility was offered by Carl Thayer:
University
of New South Wales in Australia Professor Carlyle A Thayer suggested that
Vietnam submit a proposal to the UN Security Council seeking for a debate on
China's illegal oil rig placement in the South China Sea and its impact on
regional security. Thayer, who is a Southeast Asia regional specialist with
special expertise on Vietnam, said that China, as a world power, may use its
veto power to reject any UNSC resolution. However, at least the international
community will better understand Vietnam's goodwill and China's actions, asking
China to withdraw its platform from Vietnam's waters.
Bear in
mind that the United States usually feels compelled to check off the
"tried the UNSC; unreasonably blocked by PRC and/or Russian veto" box
before embarking on some unilateral security adventure.
As to
where this all goes, I envisage a specific scenario. It relates to SC-72, a
hydrocarbon exploration block off the coast of the Philippine island of Palawan
in a region called Reed or Recto Bank, in a zone that the Philippines claims
lies within its 200-nautical mile EEZ, but the PRC also claims.
Amid
the resource-related bonanza bullshit that underlies SCS rhetoric, SC-72 might
be the real thing, a significant oil and gas find that will provide a major
economic boost to the Philippine economy and the government's bottom line.
Greed and anxiety concerning SC-72 have been the consistent, unifying thread of
Philippine-PRC maritime disputes including the Scarborough Shoal circus.
The
Philippine government designated a Philippine controlled company, Forum Energy,
owned by Philippine's leading rich guy Manuel Vs Pangilinan (and very close
friend of Del Rosario; indeed, Pangilinan was the informal envoy Del Rosario
sent to the PRC when his formal diplomacy hit a wall and Aquino turned to
Trillanes) to "help assert the Southeast Asian country's sovereign rights
over parts of the South China Sea, claimed by the Philippines as the West
Philippine Sea."
SC-72
was originally a centerpiece of prospective PRC-Phillipine cooperation and
co-development. The main point of contention was Phillipine insistence that the
PRC acknowledge SC-72 as lying within the Phillipine EEZ, something that beyond
bragging rights would give the Philippine government 100% share of the
royalties. In an interesting parallel to the PRC/Vietnam/Paracels situation,
Pangilinan declared "his only condition ... was for CNOOC to respect the
Philippines' rights over Recto Bank.
When
the Philippine concession-holder sent a survey ship into SC-72 in 2011, a PRC
vessel played chicken-of-the-sea and nearly rammed it. Nevertheless, the
Philippine side has consistently presented SC-72 as a venue for cooperation
with the PRC.
I
wonder if this is about to change.
Specifically,
I can imagine a scenario in which the Philippines wins its arbitration suit
invalidating the 9-dash line; the Philippines, emboldened by its victory, US
support, and the blandishments of Japan (which is in the process of
reinterpreting its constitution to permit assistance to vital, friendly nations
under the banner of "collective self defense") decides to develop
SC-72 without the PRC; the US military closely surveils PRC vessels attempting
to disrupt unilateral Philippine exploration and production efforts and, if
necessary, US military vessels interpose themselves to protect Philippine
ships.
Indeed,
the Philippine government recently renewed the concession of Philex Energy to
August 2016, which would give time for the lengthy Arbitral Tribunal process to
play out and allow Philippine ships to sail into Recto Bank waters that are, at
least with a minimal level of ambiguity, Philippine and not Chinese.
Engineering
the PRC's exclusion from SC-72 might be seen as fitting revenge for Beijing's
presumption in sending HYSY 981 to drill off the Paracels.
Whether
or not the United States goes beyond Scarborough and Recto and establishes
itself as the all-purpose defender of the UNCLOS rights or claims of the PRC's
neighbors in a brave new world in which the nine-dash-line has been refuted
would presumably depend upon whether the US can bring itself to ratify UNCLOS itself
- a long-standing goal of the US military and diplomatic establishment, but
opposed by US conservatives as a piece of sovereignty-surrendering trickery.
But in
the South China Sea, it looks like anything is possible.
Peter
Lee
Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian
affairs and their intersection with US foreign policy. This article was
originally published on ChinaMatters.
Business & Investment Opportunities
Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated
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