PRESIDENT Bongbong Marcos made accusations against a country that has been taking aggressive action in the waters near the Philippines, without mentioning China but clearly was referring to this giant neighbor to the north.
The venue was the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, a meeting of world leaders and defense ministers and experts.
Marcos spewed these brave words: “Illegal, coercive, aggressive, and deceptive actions continue to violate our sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdictions. Attempts to apply domestic laws and regulations beyond one’s territory and jurisdiction violate international law, exacerbate tensions, and undermine regional peace and security.”
To this, the government of the People’s Republic of China just had to respond.
China’s foreign ministry, in a statement on Monday, said, “Those remarks disregard history and facts and are designed to amplify the Philippines’ wrongful position on the issues concerning the South China Sea and deliberately distort and hype up the maritime situation in the area.”
‘Diplomacy and dialogue still reign supreme, rather than a costly war that will further erode the Philippine economy and cost the lives of its soldiers and civilians.’
Beijing reiterated its stance that it has “indisputable sovereignty over Nanhai Zhudao, and sovereign rights and jurisdiction over relevant waters, the territory of the Philippines does not include China’s Nanhai Zhudao, and the so-called arbitral award on the South China Sea is illegal, null and void.” Nanhai Zhudao is China’s name for the South China Sea.
It also blamed the Philippines for the spike in tension between the countries over the maritime territorial dispute as it questioned the direction of Manila’s foreign policy.
The issues, then, boil down to the US-China rivalry in the South China Sea, in which the Philippines is not perceived by its colleagues in ASEAN as blindly following the United States’ narrative and pushing its interests.
We see nothing positive or good will happen when both the US-Philippines camp and the Chinese side continue to ramp up their fighting words on this pesky maritime dispute, with even the legitimate media joining the fray by asking President Marcos in Singapore what will happen should a Filipino die from the frequent water-cannon attacks mounted by the Chinese Coast Guard against Filipino vessels. To this, Marcos retorted an even more bellicose reply, warning that “if by a willful act” a Filipino serviceman or citizen is killed in the West Philippine Sea, it would be “very close” to an “act of war.”
“We already have suffered injury, but thank God, we have not yet gotten to the point where any of our participants, civilian or otherwise, have been killed,” the President noted in an apparent reference to Manila’s previous run-ins with Beijing, including the latter’s use of water cannons on Filipino vessels delivering supplies to Ayungin Shoal or Scarborough Shoal. “But once we get to that point, that is certainly, we would have crossed the Rubicon. Is that a red line? Almost certainly it’s going to be a red line,” he said.
These talks about drawing a red line, or issuing warnings about crossing it, should not be considered seriously by any party because no one really wants to go to war, much less on account of a single Filipino life. Remember that Vietnam and China clashed twice in the waters off the coast of the Paracel islands which both of them were claiming. Vietnamese vessels were sunk and scores of soldiers and navy men killed on both sides, but these incidents became just footnotes in the region’s history, as Vietnam and China are now both enjoying the fruits of economic cooperation. In both encounters, the US just sat on the fence, watching.
Remember also that India and China have been having on-and-off hostilities in their common border areas but these, too, did not result in a full-blown war.
Diplomacy and dialogue still reign supreme, rather than a costly war that will further erode the Philippine economy and cost the lives of its soldiers and civilians.
