Philippines - Do not deliberately create disputes on issue of South China Sea

Xinhua commentary

BEIJING: Earlier this week, a Philippines warship entered waters off Huangyan Island in the South China Sea and cited “protecting sovereignty” as an excuse to harass Chinese fishermen who were taking shelter from a storm in the lagoon.

A standoff ensued after two Chinese surveillance ships arrived in the waters to prevent the arrest of the Chinese fishermen. The Chinese government has made strong representations to the Philippines on this matter.

The face-off is just one example of a flurry of dangerous moves taken by Manila concerning the issue of the South China Sea.

These acts have seriously violated the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) signed by China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2002, which set a principle of resolving disputes through bilateral dialogue.

However, a handful of countries in the past two years have sought to use the backing of external forces to behave in excess of what is proper in the South China Sea, which both infringes China’s sovereignty and violates the consensus on maintaining peace and stability of the South China Sea and avoiding further complicating and amplifying the situation.

It is well known countries surrounding the South China Sea, including the Philippines, have vowed to conform to the DOC, while resorting to outsiders instead of bilateral talks in their efforts to resolve disputes in the region, in effect eating their words.

History also shows that meddling by outsiders will only backfire. Worse still, outsiders could use countries’ attempts to milk their support as a means to tilt the regional balance in their favor.

The Chinese Embassy reiterated that Huangyan Island is an integral part of the Chinese territory and the waters around it are a traditional fishing area for Chinese, for which China has abundant historical and jurisprudence backings.

There are many documents dating back to ancient times that record the fact Huangyan Island is part of Chinese territory.

The fact that China has sovereign rights and exercises jurisdiction over Huangyan Island is widely respected by the international community.

China has long abided by the principle of resolving disputes through peaceful diplomatic negotiation and upholds the stance of shelving disputes to seek common development on the issue of the South China Sea.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a regular press briefing on Wednesday that the so-called law-enforcement actions by the Philippines in the waters off Huangyan Island was an infringement of China’s sovereignty.

Liu also urged the Philippines to stop making new trouble and avoid actions that could complicate and aggravate the situation.

As the standoff continues, China hopes the Philippines acts with a view to the overall situation of maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea and works with China to create favorable conditions for the healthy and stable development of relations between the two countries.

Philippine relations with the United States

I’m sure Philippine relations with the United States is discussed openly in diplomatic talks between the Philippines and China.

But did Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario and Ambassador Ma Keqing when they were discussing the Panatag Shoal stand-off?

The Xinhua commentary quoted in full above is obviously adverting to the USA in the sentence: “However, a handful of countries in the past two years have sought to use the backing of external forces to behave in excess of what is proper in the South China Sea, which both infringes China’s sovereignty and violates reign the consensus on maintaining peace and stability of the South China Sea and avoiding further complicating and amplifying the situation.” And in the words “meddling by outsiders.”

Is China being assertive about its claims of sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea because the United States has firmly proclaimed its intention to remain a power in the Pacific?

The STRATFOR geopolitical analysis in this special report examines China’s strategic problems and motivations.

There is a “military component”—according to STRATFOR’S George friedman—to the situation China faces.

Military component

“Besides the issues with its economic model, China also faces a primarily military problem. China depends on the high seas to survive. The configuration of the South China Sea and the East China Sea render China relatively easy to blockade. The East China Sea is enclosed on a line from Korea to Japan to Taiwan, with a string of islands between Japan and Taiwan. The South China Sea is even more enclosed on a line from Taiwan to the Philippines, and from Indonesia to Singapore. Beijing’s single greatest strategic concern is that the United States would impose a blockade on China, not by positioning its 7th Fleet inside the two island barriers but outside them.

From there, the United States could compel China to send its naval forces far away from the mainland to force an opening—and encounter US warships—and still be able to close off China’s exits.

“That China does not have a navy capable of challenging the United States compounds the problem. China is still in the process of completing its first aircraft carrier; indeed, its navy is insufficient in size and quality to challenge the United States. But naval hardware is not China’s greatest challenge. The United States commissioned its first aircraft carrier in 1922 and has been refining both carrier aviation and battle group tactics ever since. Developing admirals and staffs capable of commanding carrier battle groups takes generations. Since the Chinese have never had a carrier battle group in the first place, they have never had an admiral commanding a carrier battle group.

“China understands this problem and has chosen a different strategy to deter a US naval blockade: anti-ship missiles capable of engaging and perhaps penetrating US carrier defensive systems, along with a substantial submarine presence. The United States has no desire to engage the Chinese at all, but were this to change, the Chinese response would be fraught with difficulty.”

China’s US problem involves us Filipinos

China’s problem with the US and the possibility of being blockaded one day involves the Philippines.

It is therefore China’s strategy to include diminishing US influence on the Philippines as well as insuring that the West Philippine Sea truly and physically become a place solidly under PRC control.

This means the Philippines will one day have to make a choice between China and the United States.

Meanwhile, if we are to be diplomatic and do as China pleases, and stop making “ dangerous moves concerning the issue of the South China Sea,” does it mean that:

• Our President and Secretary of Foreign Affairs should no longer say that it is “clear that the Scarborough Shoal is an integral part of the Philippines.” That “We have sovereignty and sovereign rights over Scarbo-rough Shoal”?

• We should agree with the Chinese leaders that we should not internationalize our territorial disputes with their country and only talk to them and no one else about these?

• Our government should not file diplomatic protests and tell the United Nations and Asean about these incidents?

• If we want some development work done— exploration for oil and such things, for instance —we should do as China suggests, do it with Chinese ministries and companies and not with “outside forces.”

• We Filipinos should oppose the United States in its policy of having a say in the way the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) is to be governed, policed and used? That we should, in other words, not be like Singapore and other countries of Asean, that have agreed to hold war games and bilateral military activities with the United States? That we should abrogate our Mutual Defense Treaty with the US?

• We should diplomatically swallow our pride and accept being a vassal state of China? That we should accept becoming one of those children who would be given a spanking (as the late Deng Xiaoping said of Vietnam) if—in the opinion of the rulers of the Middle Kingdom now known as the People’s Republic of China— we misbehave?

The Philippines and China have reached an impasse. Secretary del Rosario himself says we are in a stalemate. Despite the Philippine efforts to settle the territorial disputes through diplomacy—by holding talks—our government and that of China are deadlocked.

In diplomacy, when there’s a deadlock between two parties, the only way progress can happen is for one of the parties to agree to subordinate its interests.

It’s in the end a matter of power. Which one has more wealth, a bigger army, navy and air force. Which is the nuclear power.

The confrontation between our warship Gregorio del Pilar and China’s naval surveillance ships, according to one viewpoint, “put us in our place.”

What place is that?

The place of the weak Sad Sack who occasionally talks strong. From now on therefore, if we don’t want China to beat us up, we must shut up.

What about the things China does not like about Philippine foreign relations—like our military ties with the United States? Like the USA’s being the main source of funds and materiel to modernize and strengthen our armed forces?

That too will have to change—if we want to “be diplomatic” and please China.

There is no such thing as a win-win solution in geopolitics and in serious diplomacy.

So what should our posture be?

Grin and bear it?

Should we let the rapist have his way with us—and, as a former foreign secretary despicably said a long time ago about female OFWs—learn to enjoy it?

manilatimes.net

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